Moon-Calf 


Were  You  Ever  a  Child? 

By  Floyd  Dell 

"  To  have  written  a  book  of  this  sort  that  is  at 
once  sound  and  captivating  is  no  mean  achieve 
ment." —  The  Survey. 

"  It  is  a  book  remarkable  for  that  kind  of  imag 
ination  which  relates  everything  it  touches  to  the 
fundamental  concerns  of  life,  for  an  intellectual 
honesty,  and  for  so  sharp  a  sense  of  democracy 
that  it  extends  even  to  the  child."—  N.  Y.  Tribune. 

"A  wholly  delightful  book  on  education."— 
Chicago  Tribune. 

"Written  in  a  way  to  appeal  to  many  people 
who  ordinarily  would  not  read  books  about  educa 
tion." —  American  Library  Association  Booklist. 

At  all  Booksellers,  or  from  the  Publisher 
Alfred  A.  Knopf 
York 


MOON-CALF 

A  Novel 


by 


Floyd  Dell 


New  York 
Alfred  •  A  •  Knopf 

1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 


Published,  October,  1920 

Second  Printing,  November,  1920 

Third  Printing,  December,  1920 

Fourth  Printing,  December,  1920 

Fifth  Printing,  December,  1920 

Sixth  Printing,  February,  1921 

Seventh  Printing,  February,  1921 

Eighth  Printing,  March,  1921 

Ninth  Printing,  May,  1921. 


PRINTED    IX    THE    TTNTTKn    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


TO 

B.  MARIE  GAGE, 

DAUGHTER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST, 

IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 

THIS  TALE  OF  THAT  STRANGE  REGION— 

THIS  RECORD  OF  ITS  GRIM  YET  GENEROUS 

HOSPITALITY  TO  THE  FANTASTIC  BEAUTY 

OF  YOUNG  AMERICAN  LIFfi 


404723 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  ONE 

MAPLE 
I    THE  FAYS  3 
II    ELLEN  DREAMS  n 

III  SHADOW-SHAPES  22 

IV  FIRST  FLIGHTS  36 

V  "  WHAT  Is  KNOWN  AS  EGOTISM  "  49 

VI  THE  STRANGER  SEX  62 

VII  THE  HAND  OF  REALITY  77 

VIII  THE  END  OF  MAPLE  89 

BOOK  TWO 

VICKLEY 

IX  A  FAMILY  95 

X  FELIX:     DICTATOR  102 

XI  A  CRITIQUE  OF  PURE  REASON  107 

XII  Two  AGAINST  THE  WORLD  113 

XIII  THE  NOT  IMPOSSIBLE  SHE  123 

XIV  THE  BREAK-UP  132 

BOOK  THREE 

PORT  ROYAL 

XV  LONELINESS  145 

XVI  RHYTHMS  155 

XVII  To  NOWHERE  AND  BACK  163 

XVIII  HELEN  RAYMOND  172 

XIX  INITIATION  178 

XX  THE  ART  OF  WRITING  184 

XXI  WORK  191 


Contents 

XXII  THE  FACTORY  WORLD  196 

XXIII  ADVENTURE  200 

XXIV  UTOPIA  206 

XXV  CENTRAL  BRANCH  212 

XXVI  REVELATION  217 

XXVII  ADOPTED  220 

XXVIII  DISCOVERIES  227 

XXIX  THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES  235 

XXX  VISTAS  244 

XXXI  PEOPLE  253 

XXXII  ADVICE  260 

XXXIII  ACCIDENT  268 


BOOK  FOUR 
THE  CABIN 

XXXIV  EDUCATION  277 

XXXV  REVERSION  TO  TYPE  283 

XXXVI  STATISTICS  291 

XXXVII  THE  QUEST  297 

XXXVIII  THE  GIRL  302 

XXXIX  EXPLANATIONS  306 

XL  REACTIONS  316 

XLI  ARGUMENT  323 

XLII  "  IF  YOUNG  HEARTS  WERE  NOT  so  CLEVER     332 

XLIII  ETHICS  337 

XLIV  TRUCE  347 

XLV  OPPORTUNITIES  352 

XLVI  ECONOMICS  358 

XLVII  ESCAPE  363 

XLVIII  QUARRELS  368 

XLIX  INTERIM  374  ,  „ 

L  "  AND  STILL  A  GARDEN  BY  THE  WATER  BLOWS     380 

LI  PAST  AND  PRESENT  385 

LII  ENDING  393 


Book  One 
Maple 


I  The  Fays 


WHEN  James  Fay  died,  he  had  held  the  office  of 
county  treasurer,  and  the  respect  of  all  his  fel 
low  citizens,  for  so  long  that  it  seemed  as  if  it 
had  been  always  so.     He  was  Sawter  County's  grand  old 
man. 

It  is  many  years  now  since  his  death,  and  he  is  still  re 
membered  in  Sawter  County.  But  the  story  which  keeps 
his  memory  alive  goes  back  to  an  earlier  time,  when  he  was 
not  respected  by  his  fellow  citizens  —  to  the  time  when  he 
was  old  Jimmy  Fay  the  crank.  Old  Jimmy  had  not  changed ; 
it  was  not  in  his  nature  to  change.  It  was  the  whole  United 
States,  and  Sawter  County  along  with  it,  that  had  changed. 
It  had  taken  a  civil  war  to  make  old  Jimmy  Fay  popular 
among  his  neighbours. 

Old  Jimmy  was  an  Abolitionist  —  at  that  date  perhaps 
the  only  one  in  southwestern  Illinois.  He  hated  slavery  — 
profoundly  and  passionately.  He  had  always  hated  it ;  and 
he  was  to  live  to  see  his  neighbours  go  to  war  against  it, 
and  come  home  honouring  him  for  having  been  the  first 
among  them  to  denounce  it.  But  slavery  was  not  an  issue 
in  Sawter  County  —  yet.  The  free  soil  of  Sawter  County 
was  washed  by  the  Mississippi,  and  the  sympathies  of  its 
citizens  caressed  by  the  slow  pressure  of  a  so uth ward-mov 
ing  current  of  interest.  Speakers  at  the  grand  political  meet 
ings,  knowing  this  to  be  in  the  zone  of  doubtful  sympathies, 
avoided  the  subject.  Politics  meant  little  to  Sawter  County, 
anyway  —  less  than  might  have  been  supposed  from  the 
attendance  at  the  meetings  and  barbecues.  The  taste  of 
fresh  roast  pig,  after  long  months  of  salt  pork,  was  the  real 
attraction  —  not  the  speeches. 

3 


4      v.  ::.':  :: ;;-: 

Sawter  County  was  still  indifferent  to  the  Slavery  Ques 
tion  when  news  came  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  The  Su 
preme  Court  had  ruled  that  a  slave  could  not  gain  his 
freedom  by  escaping  to  free  territory  —  he  was  property 
north  as  well  as  south.  Only  one  person  in  Sawter  County 
was  particularly  interested  in  that  news.  To  old  Jimmy 
Fay  it  was  a  day  of  tragedy.  And  to  mark  his  sense  of  it, 
he  declared  a  fast  for  himself  and  his  family. 

This  was  the  story  by  which  old  Jimmy  Fay  was  destined 
to  be  remembered.  Sawter  County  regarded  it  as  a  choice 
example  of  his  quaint  cussedness.  Gathered  around  grocery 
store  stoves,  at  supper  tables,  at  fences  by  the  roadside,  the 
whole  county  laughed. 

As  the  report  travelled  it  was  elaborated  upon.  It  was 
said  that  not  only  had  old  Jimmy  made  his  whole  family  go 
without  food  that  day,  but  his  horses  and  cows  and  pigs  as 
well.  As  Tom  Jenkins,  the  Maple  barber,  told  the  story, 
old  Jimmy  Fay  had  gone  the  rounds  of  the  stalls  and  pig 
pens,  and  said,  looking  down  at  the  famished  and  wondering 
animals,  "  Mourn,  ye  brutes !  for  Justice  is  perished  from 
the  land!" 

Old  Jimmy  was  not  loved  in  Sawter  County.  He  never 
would  have  anything  to  do  with  his  neighbours,  even  in  the 
pioneer  days  of  communal  barn-raisings  and  corn-shuckings. 
He  never  lent  a  horse  or  a  tool;  and  he  never  needed  to 
borrow.  He  was  a  long,  lean  and  habitually  silent  New 
Englander  of  Scotch-Irish  stock.  He  had  come  there  in 
the  early  days  with  his  little  Pennsylvania-Dutch  wife,  and 
raised  a  family  of  six  sons,  with  whose  help  he  had  con 
quered  one  acre  after  another  until  he  had  the  largest  farm 
in  the  county.  He  drove  to  Harden  with  wheat  and  corn 
and  potatoes  as  the  market  for  these  grew  up ;  once  a  year 
he  went  to  the  notary  public,  and  added  to  the  Fay  farm  a 
contiguous  patch  belonging  to  some  unthrifty  neighbour; 
after  the  formation  of  the  Republican  party  he  came  in  to 
attend  its  caucuses,  and  to  vote ;  but  except  on  such  occasions 
he  was  never  seen  in  public,  The  Fay  farm  was  like  a 


The  -Fays  5 

citadel,  or  a  nation  within  a  nation  —  inhabited  by  the  half- 
mythical  figure  of  Jimmy,  and  his  submissive  wife  and 
obedient  sons.  They  were  not  allowed  to  attend  any  of  the 
local  festivities,  nor  pay  attentions  to  the  neighbouring  girls. 
It  used  to  be  jocosely  said  in  Sawter  County  that  "  old 
Jimmy's  saving  his  boys  for  nigger  wives  —  our  girls  ain't 
good  enough  for  'em."  Only  the  youngest  of  the  sons  ever 
broke  through  this  iron  tyranny. 

The  youngest  was  Adam.  He  was  unlike  his  brothers, 
who  had  their  father's  length  and  silentness.  Adam  was 
short  in  stature;  and  he  alone  inherited  from  his  Dutch 
mother  the  softer  contours  which  half  concealed  his  sturdi- 
ness.  Strangest  of  all  in  a  Fay,  he  was  a  talker,  fond  of 
a  joke,  good-natured  and  sociable.  His  tendencies  toward 
frivolity  were  sternly  discouraged;  but  he  evaded  his  fa 
ther's  prohibition  and  went  to  a  barn-raising  when  he  was 
fifteen,  and  learned  to  dance.  Old  Jimmy  was  said  to  have 
beaten  him  with  the  stick  which  always  stood  in  the  corner 
for  purposes  of  education;  and  young  Adam  was  said  to 
have  broken  the  stick  afterward  and  thrown  it  out  of  the 
window,  saying,  "  That's  the  last  time  that  will  happen." 
He  continued  to  go  to  the  dances. 

When  he  was  sixteen  years  old,  Adam  quarrelled  with 
old  Jimmy  over  the  ploughing  of  a  potato  patch.  "  North 
and  south  I  said  it  should  be  ploughed,"  declared  old  Jimmy, 
"  and  north  and  south  it  shall  be  ploughed."  So  Adam  went 
to  the  barn  and  saddled  his  favourite  colt,  and  rode  away 
from  the  farm,  to  Maple,  a  dozen  miles  away.  He  never 
saw  his  father  again  until  after  the  war. 


Adam  went  to  Maple  because  his  father  traded  at  Harden, 
in  the  other  direction.  Maple  was  a  church,  a  saloon,  a 
blacksmith  shop  and  a  few  stores  ranged  on  the  four  sides 
of  a  square.  In  front  of  his  butcher  shop,  that  noon,  stood 
Bill  Hollander.  Bill  was  enormously  fat  and  enormously 
good  natured.  He  nodded  to  Adam. 


6   A 

Adam  dismounted,  tied  the  colt  to  the  hitching  post,  and 
told  Mr.  Hollander  that  he  wanted  to  learn  the  butcher 
trade. 

Bill  stared.     "Whose  boy  are  you?"  he  asked. 

"  I'm  James  Fay's  boy,  out  Harden  way." 

"  Old  Jimmy  Fay,  eh?  "  Bill  smiled. 

Adam  had  fought  it  out  more  than  once  when  people  said 
"  Old  Jimmy  Fay  "  and  smiled  in  that  fashion ;  but  this  time 
he  only  flushed  and  was  silent. 

"  How  old  are  you  ?  " 

"  Sixteen." 

"  Any  muscle  in  those  arms  ?  " 

"  Try  me  and  see  !  " 

"  All  right.  Hit  me  —  here."  Bill  patted  his  great  stom 
ach. 

"Hit  you?" 

"Go  ahead!" 

Adam  hit  as  hard  as  he  could.  Bill  Hollander's  abdomen 
was  like  rock. 

"  Not  so  bad  for  a  youngster. —  And  now  I'll  hit  you." 
He  rolled  his  sleeves  an  inch  higher. 

"  All  right !  "  said  Adam. 

Bill  struck,  and  Adam  picked  himself  up  from  the  wooden 
sidewalk. 

"  Not  so  bad  for  a  fat  man,"  he  managed  to  say  breath 
lessly. 

"  You  want  to  work  for  me  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  damn  if  I  don't  make  a  butcher  out  of  you. 
What  are  you  standing  around  here  for?  Take  that  colt 
back  to  the  barn  and  give  him  a  feed,  and  then  get  in  the 
shop  and  get  to  work !  " 

In  this  simple  fashion  Adam  Fay  began  adult  life. 

3 

Two  years  later  a  recruiting  station  was  opened  in  Maple, 
and  a  cavalry  officer  with  fierce  moustaches  and  a  new  uni- 


The  Fays  7 

form  stalked  the  streets.  Fort  Sumter  had  been  fired  on, 
and  it  looked  as  if  there  really  would  be  a  war.  Patriotic 
speeches  were  made  in  the  square.  Dick  Hadley,  the  horse- 
breaker,  was  getting  up  a  cavalry  company.  One  conversa 
tion  with  him  electrified  Adam  Fay.  He  enlisted. 

"  Boys  will  be  boys,"  said  Bill  Hollander. 

In  the  month  at  the  training  camp,  private  Fay  of  Com 
pany  B,  Third  Illinois  Cavalry,  fought  eighteen  fist-fights, 
made  many  friends,  learned  to  chew  tobacco,  and  acquired 
the  nickname  "  Banty."  Also,  the  colonel  of  the  regiment 
saw  him  galloping  break-neck  across  the  field,  and  picked 
him  for  his  orderly. 

It  was  much  later,  after  an  extended  acquaintance  with  the 
character  of  this  young  orderly,  that  Colonel  Clodd  said  to 
him :  "  Banty,  you'll  either  be  shot  for  general  insubordina 
tion,  or  promoted  for  extraordinary  and  useless  daring  — 
and  /  don't  care  which !  " 

Strange  things  occur  in  the  army  of  a  democracy.  Banty 
Fay  had  been  assigned  to  hospital  duty,  which  meant  that 
he  carried  the  mail  to  the  corps  hospital  twice  a  day.  This 
was  easy  work,  and  Banty  was  happy  until  one  day  he 
learned  that  his  company  was  leaving  for  the  front  —  with 
out  him.  If  Banty  had  been  somebody  else  he  would  have 
realized  that  he,  being  attached  to  the  colonel's  staff,  would 
go  next  day  on  the  boat  with  the  colonel.  But  all  he  could 
see  was  the  tragic  fact  that  Company  B  was  going  to  the 
front,  and  that  he  was  being  left  behind.  He  appealed  to 
Captain  Hardy,  who  said  it  was  none  of  his  affair.  He 
appealed  to  Colonel  Clodd,  who  enjoyed  his  orderly's  dis 
comfiture,  and  gravely  advised  him  to  see  General  J.  about 
it  —  otherwise,  added  the  colonel  solemnly,  he  might  have 
to  stay  here  as  long  as  the  hospital  did.  Banty  thanked  him 
and  went  to  the  staff  headquarters. 

He  found  General  J.  ensconced  behind  a  mahogany  desk 
in  a  neatly-appointed  office.  He  stated  his  case.  The  as 
tonished  general  told  him  briefly  to  obey  orders,  and  turned 
back  to  his  papers. 


8  Moon-Calf 

Banty  spat  tobacco  juice  reflectively  on  the  General's  rug, 
and  turned  sadly  to  go. 

The  General,  who  was  noted  for  his  neatness,  rose  and 
denounced  the  outrage  in  the  language  of  the  major  proph 
ets.  He  ended  by  saying,  "  You  are  fined  a  month's  pay." 

"  You  might  as  well  fine  me  a  million  dollars,  General," 
said  Private  Fay.  "  I'll  never  pay  it."  So  saying,  he  went 
out.  And  then  an  idea  occurred  to  him.  He  hurried  to 
the  hospital,  saddled  his  horse,  galloped  to  the  dock,  and 
rode  on  to  the  gang-plank  just  as  it  started  to  lift.  Com 
pany  B  cheered. 

His  insubordination  was  forgotten  in  the  fighting  that  fol 
lowed,  so  far  as  Colonel  Clodd  was  concerned;  but  when 
the  pay-roll  came  around,  the  fine  was  recorded  against  his 
name.  He  refused  to  sign  the  pay-roll.  "You  can't  get 
your  pay  next  month,  if  you  don't,"  said  the  paymaster. 
"All  right,"  said  Banty.  Next  month  found  him  still  ob 
durate.  He  would  not  sign.  The  paymaster  reported  to 
Colonel  Clodd  the  strange  case  of  a  soldier  who  refused  to 
take  his  pay.  The  Colonel  expostulated  patiently  with  his 
orderly. 

"  I'll  never  sign  it  so  long  as  that  fine's  on  there,"  said 
Banty. 

"  Do  you  think  you  can  hold  out  longer  than  the  govern 
ment  can  ?  " 

"  Yes,  by  God !  "  said  Private  Fay. 

"  You're  a  fool,"  said  the  Colonel.  "  But  if  you  must  be 
a  fool,  let  me  lend  you  some  money." 

4 

In  the  operations  around  Vicksburg,  the  Colonel  said  to 
him :  "  How  would  you  like  a  captain's  commission  ?  I 
can  get  you  one  if  you  want  to  work  for  it.  There  are  all 
sorts  of  niggers  around  here  that  ought  to  be  fighting  for 
their  country.  You  round  up  a  company  of  them,  and  I'll 
attend  to  the  commission." 

"  Thank  you,  Colonel,"  said  Banty  —  and  went  to  work. 


The  Fays  9 

He  knew  that  if  the  rebels  caught  him  enlisting  negroes  they 
would  string  him  up  to  the  first  tree.  So  he  worked  quickly. 

He  found  his  negro,  pointed  a  carbine  at  him,  and  asked 
whether  he  would  rather  die  now  or  join  the  army.  He 
brought  in  a  batch  of  recruits  every  evening. 

"  Good !  "  said  the  Colonel.  "  And  now  while  you  are 
waiting  for  that  commission  to  arrive,  you  can  take  charge 
of  your  niggers  and  put  them  to  work  building  a  road  along 
the  river  for  the  artillery." 

It  was  marshy  ground,  thick  set  with  reeds  and  willows. 
The  negroes,  stripped  to  the  waist,  toiled  in  the  blazing  sun 
light,  cutting  down  underbrush  and  driving  pilings,  under 
the  fierce  eye  of  Banty  Fay.  The  rebels  sent  an  inquisitive 
cannon-ball  or  two  their  way,  and  the  negroes  dropped  their 
tools;  but  they  picked  them  up  again.  They  were  more 
afraid  of  the  little  man  with  the  big  moustaches  than  of  any 
other  form  of  death. 

But  as  the  sun  rose  higher  and  the  wind  changed,  the 
odour  of  their  terrified  sweat  came  heavily  to  Banty  Fay's 
nostrils.  He  was  annoyed.  Was  this,  he  asked  himself, 
what  he  had  enlisted  for?  That  night  he  went  to  the 
Colonel. 

"  Well,  what  is  it  now?  "  asked  that  patient  officer. 

"  Colonel  —  I  said  I'd  like  a  commission,  but  I  didn't  say 
I'd  like  to  be  a  nigger  overseer,  and  damned  if  I  will !  " 

"  Oh,  go  back  to  your  company  if  you  like,"  said  the 
Colonel  wearily. 

Banty  saluted.  "Thank  you,  Colonel."  He  turned  to 
go. 

"  By  the  way,  have  you  signed  the  pay-roll  yet  ?  " 

"No." 

"  How  are  you  fixed  ?  " 

"  I  can  hold  out  a  while  longer,  Colonel." 

"  They'll  never  take  off  that  fine!" 

"  I'll  never  pay  it !  " 

"Well —  good  luck." 

"  Thank  you,  Colonel." 


io  Moon-Calf 

Nevertheless  when  Private  Fay  was  knocked  senseless  by 
a  spent  ball,  and  left  for  dead  on  the  field  a  few  months 
later  in  Texas,  the  fine  was  crossed  from  the  rolls.  And 
when,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  Adam  Fay  was  released  from 
a  rebel  prison  —  where  he  had  made  eleven  daring  and. 
impossible  attempts  to  escape  —  he  collected  the  whole 
amount  of  his  back  pay.  Otherwise,  he  said,  he  would  have 
sued  the  government. 

Pale  but  bearded,  he  lounged  about  the  sunny  streets  of 
New  Orleans  for  a  month,  and  then  felt  sufficiently  recov 
ered  to  swim  across  the  Mississippi  river  on  a  bet,  defying 
the  alligators. 

Then,  after  a  visit  to  his  father's  farm,  he  came  back  to 
Maple,  where  he  won  the  pretty  girl  school  teacher  in  a 
whirlwind  courtship,  set  up  a  butcher-shop  and  a  family, 
attended  Grand  Army  reunions,  voted  the  Republican  ticket, 
quarrelled  with  his  customers  over  politics,  and  failed  in 
business. 


II  Ellen  Dreams 


THE  name  of  the  pretty  school-teacher  was  Ellen 
Conway.  She  was  one  of  three  sisters  who  lived 
on  a  farm  near  Maple.  Their  father,  a  restless 
and  luckless  Irishman,  had  left  the  farm  several  times  to 
the  mercies  of  a  hired  man  while  he  went  off  on  some  ad 
venture  meant  to  improve  his  fortunes.  The  first  time  he 
had  gone  back  to  Connecticut  to  look  after  a  business  which 
he  had  deserted,  but  which  seemed  to  have  revived  under 
the  care  of  his  partner.  Six  months  later,  however,  he  was 
back  on  the  farm.  Twice  he  had  gone  westward  in  search 
of  some  Eldorado  —  the  second  time  in  the  gold  rush  of 
'49.  After  that  his  wife  heard  from  him  at  intervals  for 
two  or  three  years,  but  he  never  returned.  Two  separate 
reports  of  his  death  reached  the  family  afterward  —  one  re 
port  being  that  he  had  been  shot  in  a  California  gambling 
resort,  the  other  that  he  had  been  drowned  somewhere  in 
the  South  Seas. 

The  two  elder  daughters,  Jane  and  Susan,  regarded 
their  father's  memory  with  some  bitterness.  After  his  last 
leave-taking  they  had  had  to  dismiss  the  hired  man  and 
work  the  little  farm  themselves.  Their  mother  had  died, 
and  they  had  grown  hard  and  grim  in  the  struggle.  They 
might  have  married,  but  they  refused  their  opportunities 
scornfully. 

Ellen  had  been  little  more  than  a  baby  when  her  father 
went  away  in  '49,  but  she  remembered  him  vividly.  Her 
earliest  memory  was  of  being  sung  to  sleep  by  her  father 
to  a  quaint  and  rollicking  tune  which  still  lingered  faintly 

ii 


12  Moon-Calf 

in  her  memory  along  with  the  romantic  odour  of  his  kiss  — 
an  odour  which  undoubtedly  was  a  mixture  of  tobacco  and 
whisky.  The  song  which  she  remembered  as  a  lullaby  was 
also  undoubtedly  an  improper  one,  judged  by  the  fragment 
which  remained  in  Ellen's  mind,  but  which  as  she  grew  up 
she  thought  had  somehow  got  into  her  childish  memory  by 
mistake  —  a  tag  of  chorus  consisting  of  the  words: 
"  Damn!  damn!  damn! "  Ellen  thought  of  her  father  often, 
wondered  if  he  were  perhaps  still  alive.  He  was  to  her  a 
romantic  and  wonderful  person. 

Ellen  did  not  like  her  chores  on  the  farm.  She  preferred 
to  go  to  school.  She  liked  best  of  all  to  read  and  dream. 
She  dreamed  often  of  going  away  from  the  farm.  Some 
times,  in  her  fantasy,  her  father  returned  and  took  her 
away  in  a  carriage.  Her  sisters  would  often  come  upon  her 
when  she  was  standing  absorbed  in  a  fascinating  day-dream, 
while  she  was  supposed  to  be  washing  dishes  or  feeding  the 
pigs. 

"  Don't  stand  there  with  your  mouth  open,"  Susan  would 
say  severely. 

"  It's  those  books  she  reads,"  Jane  would  say. 

When  Ellen  was  sixteen  years  old  she  thought  of  a  way  to 
get  free  from  the  farm.  She  would  go  to  Maple  to  teach 
school. 

"  Humph  !  "  said  Jane.  "  Do  you  think  work  some  place 
else  is  any  different  from  work  here  ?  " 

"  I  hadn't  thought  about  that  at  all,"  confessed  Ellen. 

"  Let  her  go,"  said  Susan.     "  She'll  find  out." 

The  day  she  left  home,  the  sky  was  a  bright  fathomless 
blue. 

Ellen  stood  on  the  doorstep,  between  the  two  boxes 
of  moss-roses  that  were  her  sisters'  one  feminine  weakness, 
waiting  for  Jane  to  drive  the  buggy  around  from  the  barn. 
Susan  was  saying  something  to  her  from  indoors,  something 
about  her  woollen  underclothes,  but  Ellen  wasn't  listening. 
She  was  looking  into  the  blue  above  the  horizon  with  a  gaze 
of  shy.  eager,  miraculous  trust. 


Ellen  Dreams  13 


At  Maple,  Ellen  boarded  at  the  home  of  Bill  Hollander  — 
who,  besides  being  the  town  butcher,  was  a  school  director. 
Mr.  Hollander  amused  himself  by  a  kind  of  jocose  cross- 
examination,  conducted  at  the  supper-table,  in  regard  to  the 
new  teacher's  qualifications  for  the  task  of  educating  the 
young  people  of  Maple.  At  first  Ellen  was  rather  alarmed, 
thinking  that  he  might  be  intending  to  use  his  influence  to 
have  her  dismissed.  But  Mrs.  Hollander  reassured  her. 
"  Don't  you  pay  any  attention  to  him,"  she  said.  "  It's  just 
his  way  of  talking."  After  that  Ellen  always  caught  the 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  and  though  she  did  not  see  anything 
humorous  in  his  questions,  she  smiled  and  refused  to  be 
disconcerted. 

"  Every  boy  in  the  United  States  has  a  chance  to  be  presi 
dent  —  ain't  that  so,  Miss  Conway  ?  "  he  would  begin  gently 
and  persuasively. 

"  Yes,"  Ellen  would  say  —  suspiciously. 

"  Yes,  siree  !  "  and  Bill  would  become  eloquent.  "  Every 
boy  in  the  whole  U.  S.  A. !  And  that  means  a  lot  of  com 
petition  when  you  come  to  think  about  it.  The  boys  of 
Sawter  County  have  got  a  lot  to  buck  up  against.  But  never 
mind  —  we're  going  to  see  that  they  get  the  right  start. 
That's  why  we've  got  Miss  Ellen  Conway  to  teach  'em.  No, 
I'm  not  making  fun  of  you.  Don't  you  see,  if  they  wanted 
me  to  teach  school,  all  I  could  teach  would  be  the  butcher 
trade?  And  if  they  went  to  Tom  Jenkins,  all  he  could 
teach  would  be  how  to  trim  whiskers.  Most  of  us  only 
know  one  solitary  thing  —  if  we  know  that  much  —  so  we're 
no  good  for  teachers.  We  want  somebody  to  teach  the  boys 
everything.  So  we  got  you  to  do  it.  And  if  one  of  'em 
ain't  president,  it  won't  be  our  fault  —  now,  will  it?  " 

Ellen  could  never  quite  accustom  herself  to  this  kind  of 
badinage.  But  she  tried  to  attune  her  attitude,  when  under 
fire,  to  the  serene  indifference  of  Mrs.  Hollander  upon 
similar  occasions.  Mr.  Hollander  would  come  home  quiver- 


14  Moon-Calf 

ing  with  excitement  and  say :  "  Ned  Watson  got  a  letter 
from  his  boy  today."  Ned's  boy  was  at  the  front,  in  the 
same  company  with  Adam  Fay.  Bill  wanted  her  to  ask 
what  Ned  Watson's  boy  had  to  say.  But  instead  she  would 
remark:  "So  Ned  was  in  the  shop  today."  Bill  would 
turn,  stare  at  her  in  feigned  amazement  and  admiration,  and 
say :  "  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  that !  Guessed  right  the 
first  time!  I  tell  you  what,  few  women  would  be  able  to 
make  a  dee-duction  right  off-hand,  slam  bang,  and  correct 
to  the  ounce.  I've  got  a  smart  woman  for  a  wife,  I  have !  " 
—  He  would  pause  for  breath. 

"  So  Ned  was  in  to  the  shop  ?  "  she  would  ask  calmly. 

"  There's  no  use  trying  to  fool  you,  Sally.  I'll  own  right 
up.  He  was." 

"  Did  he  bring  the  letter  with  him  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"He'd  just  been  to  the  postoffice?" 

"  I  wondered  if  you'd  guess  that !  " 

"  Had  he  ?  "  she  would  persist. 

"  Yes,  ma'am." 

"  Did  he  read  you  the  letter?  " 

"  Right  again !  " 

"  What  did  it  say  ?     Anything  about  Adam  ?  " 

And  Bill  would  tell  the  news  he  had  been  wanting  to  tell 
all  along. 

Ellen  learned  a  great  deal  about  Adam  Fay  —  some  of  it 
invented  by  Bill  Hollander  in  the  exuberance  of  his  supper- 
table  fancy.  Mrs.  Hollander  aways  rebuked  him,  saying 
calmly,  "  You  know  that  ain't  true,  Bill."  He  would  turn 
his  head  on  one  side  and  say,  "  Well,  no,  in  a  way  it  ain't, 
I  grant  you  that  —  but  it  illustrates  my  point."  In  spite  of 
these  corrections,  Ellen  accepted  a  good  deal  of  fable  along 
with  the  truth,  and  it  was  in  a  kind  of  romantic  flutter  that 
she  allowed  herself  to  be  persuaded  to  send  Adam  a  message 
and  a  little  present  in  one  of  their  letters.  She  was  advised 
by  Mrs.  Hollander  to  send  him  a  little  book  of  threaded 
needles,  of  large  size  as  befitting  clumsy,  masculine  fingers. 


Ellen  Dreams  15 

This  seemed  to  Ellen  an  inappropriate  gift  to  a  soldier,  but 
Mrs.  Hollander  reminded  her  that  soldiers  also  have  to  patch 
their  clothes.  So  Ellen  made  up  for  its  prosaic  quality  by 
enclosing  a  "  verse  "  written  by  herself  : 

"  'Mid  war's  alarms  do  not  forget 
The  ones  who  wait  for  thy  return; 
They  know  that  Duty  calls  ihee  —  yet 
Their  anxious  hearts  still  fondly  burn." 

After  it  was  despatched,  she  began  to  count  the  days  be 
fore  there  could  be  a  reply.  But  before  the  time  was  up, 
there  came  the  news  that  Adam  Fay  had  been  killed,  in 
battle. 

Ellen  turned  back  to  her  teaching,  and  tried  to  make  it 
occupy  all  her  mind.  It  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  in 
teresting,  but  she  had  been  able  to  perform  her  duties 
patiently  enough  just  as  she  had  done  on  the  farm,  so  long 
as  there  was  a  chance  to  day-dream  at  whiles.  She  had 
been  weaving  her  make-believe  so  long,  now,  about  Adam, 
that  she  could  not  stop.  She  could  not  believe  he  was 
dead.  He  was  somehow  alive.  He  would  return. 

A  year  passed.  She  was  receiving  the  attentions  of  old 
Simpson,  the  postmaster  and  twice  a  widower.  She  was 
allowing  him  to  court  her  because  she  didn't  know  how  to 
get  rid  of  him.  She  only  awoke  to  the  reality  that  con 
fronted  her  when  Mrs.  Hollander  took  her  aside  for  a  serious 
talk  about  her  future,  a  talk  in  which  it  was  assumed  that 
Ellen  was  going  to  marry  old  Mr.  Simpson.  Ellen  was 
frightened  for  a  moment.  Was  this  what  life  held  in  store 
for  her?  She  remembered  what  her  sisters  had  said.  Then 
she  shook  her  head,  and  turned  again  trustfully  to  the  solace 
of  her  prophetic  dreams. 

Then  the  war  ended,  and  Adam  Fay  came  back  to  Maple, 
and  swaggered  into  the  Hollander  home.  He  was  different 
from  her  dream.  But  his  gaiety  and  his  daring  were  there, 
frightening  and  alluring  her  in  reality  as  in  the  dream.  And 
because  she  was  his  most  impressionable  audience,  he  found 


16  Moon-Calf 

her  charming.  As  for  old  Simpson,  Adam  took  him  outside 
the  third  time  he  found  him  at  the  Hollander  home,  and 
told  him  that  if  he  ever  saw  him  around  the  place  again, 
he'd  knock  that  new  set  of  false  teeth  clear  down  his  throat. 

Thenceforth  it  was  understood  that  Ellen  was  Adam  Fay's 
girl. 

And  one  night,  driving  home  from  a  barn  dance  in 
the  moonlight  he  kissed  her.  The  next  day,  Susan,  who 
had  come  to  town  to  buy  some  new  harness,  saw  her.  "  You 
needn't  tell  me,"  said  Susan  sharply.  "  I  can  tell  it  from 
your  eyes.  You're  going  to  cook  and  wash  and  scrub  and 
sew  and  have  a  houseful  of  babies  for  some  man." 

They  were  married  in  the  little  frame  church  facing  the 
square.  Standing  up  beside  Adam,  in  a  white  dress  with 
graceful  billowing  outlines  over  the  slender  wires,  Ellen 
looked  into  his  eyes  with  a  gaze  of  eager,  unreasoning,  un 
reasonable  belief. 


Bill  Hollander  offered  to  take  Adam  in  as  a  partner. 
"  Your  experience  in  the  war  ought  to  be  worth  a  lot  in 
this  trade,"  he  remarked  genially.  Adam  did  not  like  the 
pleasantry,  but  he  accepted  the  offer.  He  and  Ellen  lived 
for  a  few  months  with  the  Hollanders,  and  then  moved  to 
a  little  place  of  their  own  on  the  edge  of  the  town.  Ellen 
was  expecting  a  baby  and  was  not  quite  equal  to  the  house 
work,  so  they  had  a  hired  girl.  Ellen  would  sit  on  the 
porch  or  wander  in  the  woods  back  of  the  house  all  day. 
When  Adam  came  home  for  his  meals  she  would  talk  to 
him  about  the  things  she  had  been  thinking  of.  Sometimes 
they  were  fancies  which  made  Adam  rather  uncomfortable, 
he  did  not  quite  know  why  —  foolish  little  notions  about 
what  the  flowers  said  to  one  another.  He  supposed  it  was 
because  of  her  condition ;  but  he  did  not  like  it. 

In  the  evening  they  would  go  driving  —  they  had  bought 
a  gentle  old  mare,  and  Bill  had  givea  them  one  of  his  bug 
gies.  Ellen  was  vastly  interested  in  the  colours  of  the  leaves 


Ellen  Dreams  17 

and  the  sky,  and  was  always  pointing  out  things  for  him  to 
look  at  —  at  which  he  dutifully  looked,  though  he  could  not 
see  anything  very  interesting  about  them. 

He  had  exhausted  his  stock  of  war-time  stories  of  the 
more  heroic  kind,  and  had  got  down  to  a  substratum  of 
tales  which  she  did  not  like  to  hear.  She  spoke  of  a  piano ; 
it  would  be  nice  if  they  could  have  one  —  nice  for  the  chil 
dren  ;  it  was  true  that  she  could  play  only  a  few  tunes  that 
she  had  learned  by  ear  at  the  Hollanders.  This  reminded 
Adam  of  a  story.  "  There  was  a  fellow  in  our  company," 
he  said,  "  a  fellow  named  Parks,  Ned  Parks.  Came  from 
Springfield.  He's  dead  now  —  killed  near  Vicksburg.  He 
was  a  man  to  play  the  piano!  Never  heard  anything  like 
it.  One  day  when  we  were  in  Kentucky,  him  and  me 
sneaked  out  of  camp  by  a  road  we  happened  to  know  wasn't 
guarded,  and  went  to  a  farm-house  and  bought  a  chicken 
dinner.  There  was  a  piano  in  the  house,  and  he  played  it. 
And,  by  God,  he  could  play!  Another  time,  at  another 
place  in  Kentucky,  some  ladies  invited  some  of  us  to  their 
house,  and  gave  us  sandwiches;  he  played  for  them  then. 
But  the  time  I  remember  best  was  in  Louisiana.  We'd 
just  come  into  a  town  as  the  enemy  left,  and  we  followed 
them  out  —  chased  'em  till  dark.  Then  we  stopped,  at  a  big 
plantation,  and  some  of  us  went  in  to  look  for  grub.  The 
rebels  who  lived  there  had  all  gone  —  they  hadn't  expected 
us,  for  everything  was  just  as  they  dropped  it  —  there  was 
a  supper  in  the  oven  they  hadn't  stopped  to  eat.  Well,  after 
we  e't,  we  went  into  the  big  front  room,  and  there  was  a 
piano.  Ned  played  for  an  hour,  I  guess,  and  we  all  sat  ab 
solutely  quiet  listening  to  him,  and  some  of  the  boys  was 
crying. 

And  then  when  he  finished  he  got  up  and  swung  the 
piano  stool  over  his  head  and  smashed  that  piano  to 
smithereens !  " 

"  Oh  !  don't !  "  Ellen  cried  out,  horrified. 

"  Well,"  said  Adam,  "  it  wasn't  me  did  it  —  and  anyway, 
why  should  we  leave  it  for  those  rebels?  There  wasn't 


i8  Moon-Calf 

much  left  of  the  whole  place  when  we  got  through  with  it." 

"  But  why  the  piano?" 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Adam  had  been  shocked  by  the  de 
struction  of  the  piano,  at  such  a  moment  at  least.  But  he 
felt  obliged  to  take  a  strong  masculine  attitude  on  the  sub 
ject. 

"  A  piano's  no  different  from  anything  else,"  he  said. 

"  You  wouldn't  do  such  a  thing,"  she  flashed. 

He  laughed.     "  Oh,  I  don't  know  about  that." 

'*  You  wouldn't,"  she  reasserted,  but  she  was  silent  all  the 
way  home.  She  returned  several  times  to  the  subject  on 
succeeding  days,  until  he  declared  that  he  was  sick  of  hear 
ing  about  that  Gol-darn'  rebel  piano. 

Bill  Hollander  had  come  from  St.  Louis  years  ago ;  and 
now  he  was  minded  to  go  back  there  and  spend  the  rest  of 
his  life  among  city  comforts.  He  offered  to  sell  out  to 
Adam  on  terms  so  easy  that  Adam  was  able  to  meet  them. 
But  after  Bill  had  moved,  and  the  butcher  shop  was  in  his 
hands,  he  found  that  its  upkeep  was  a  severe  strain  on  his 
resources.  He  borrowed  some  money,  and  they  agreed  that 
they  could  do  without  the  hired  girl  for  a  while. 

Adam  was  beginning  to  hanker  for  more  of  the  society 
of  his  own  sex.  After  a  hard  day's  work,  he  liked  to  talk 
with  the  other  boys  — '*  veterans  "  as  they  were  beginning  to 
call  themselves  —  down  at  the  grocery  store  or  the  saloon. 
But  he  restricted  his  indulgence  in  these  pleasures  to  Sat 
urday  nights  and  occasional  holidays.  One  of  these  holi 
days  presented  itself  on  election-day  —  a  time  when  it 
seemed  more  than  ordinarily  legitimate  to  foregather  with 
his  cronies.  He  told  Ellen  the  night  before  that  he  would 
leave  the  house  early  the  next  morning  and  might  be  gone 
all  day. 

Adam  was  only  one  of  many  young  "  veterans  "  who  had 
begun  to  find  the  feminine  society  of  their  wives  a  little  tame. 
There  was  a  flavour  of  old-time  adventure  in  their  own 
companionship,  spiced  as  it  was  with  selected  reminiscence. 
They  looked  back  to  those  old  times  as  the  best  part  of  their 


Ellen  Dreams  jf 

lives;  and  they  felt  in  each  other's  society  a  free  and  easy 
sympathy  and  understanding  that  they  missed  at  home. 
Election  day  —  a  man's  day,  with  no  women  around  to  mar 
its  felicity  —  was  going  to  be  a  real  holiday. 

"  Oyez  !  Oyez !  Oyez !  Polls  are  now  open !  "  cried 
Tom  Jenkins,  the  clerk  of  elections,  standing  on  the  steps  of 
his  barber-shop,  today  a  polling  place. 

"  Oh,  yes !  Oh,  yes !  Oh,  yes !  Saloons  are  now 
closed ! "  cried  Mike  O'Leary  from  the  steps  of  the  saloon 
on  the  corner,  ushering  out  a  flock  of  citizens  who  had  risen 
early  to  perform  the  duties  of  the  day.  Adam  Fay  was  one 
of  them.  Wiping  his  moustache,  he  marched  over  into  the 
barber-shop,  to  be  the  first  to  cast  his  vote.  Then  he  and 
his  fellow-patriots  adjourned  to  the  back  of  Henderson's 
grocery  store,  to  denounce  the  "  traitors "  and  predict  a 
glorious  victory  for  the  Republican  party.  The  meeting 
lasted  all  day. 

At  six  o'clock  Tom  Jenkins  stood  again  upon  the  steps 
of  the  barber-shop.  "  Oyez !  Oyez !  Oyez !  "  he  cried. 
"  Polls  are  now  closed !  " 

"  Oh,  yes !  Oh,  yes !  Oh,  yes !  "  answered  Mike  O'Leary 
from  the  corner.  "  Saloons  are  now  open !  " 

The  patriots  filed  in.  Shortly  after  midnight,  Adam,  with 
a  consciousness  of  a  great  duty  thoroughly  performed,  re 
turned  home,  to  find  Ellen  prematurely  in  labour  with  her 
first  child.  She  had  been  alone  in  the  house  all  day.  The 
baby  died  a  few  hours  after  it  was  born. 

4 

But,  as  the  years  passed,  new  lives  came,  upon  which  to 
set  her  dreams.  Eddie,  the  oldest,  was  a  maker  of  much- 
admired  pictures  in  coloured  chalks ;  he  was  going  to  be  an 
artist  when  he  grew  up.  Jimmy,  a  year  younger,  was  al 
ready  a  little  gentleman  —  so  neat  with  his  clothes,  dis 
tressed  at  a  spot  on  their  starched  immaculateness.  Ann, 
the  baby,  had  an  odd,  whimsical  beauty.  Wonderful  chil 
dren  they  were,  full  of  shining  promise. 


20  Moon-Calf 

As  she  dreamed  upon  the  happy  lives  that  were  to  be 
theirs,  she  served  them  in  brave,  pitiful,  sordid  ways.  They 
had  moved  into  a  large  house  in  the  middle  of  town,  and 
they  had  a  hard-fisted  hired  girl  to  help  with  the  work,  but 
there  was  more  to  be  done  than  two  women  could  do.  And 
the  children,  who  had  at  first  shared  with  her  their  griefs 
and  hopes  and  tasks,  began  to  grow  up,  out  of  her  confi 
dence,  out  of  her  life.  They  let  her  cook  and  wash  and 
mend  for  them,  but  they  kept  their  secrets  to  themselves. 
They  were  no  longer,  in  the  way  they  had  been,  hers.  Some 
times,  when  the  reality  of  their  natures  broke  in  rudely 
through  her  idealizations,  she  would  declare  that  they  didn't 
act  like  her  children  at  all.  They  had  been  such  lovely 
children,  and  now  — 

The  older  they  grew,  the  less  like  her  children  they  be 
came.  Little  Ann  was  a  tomboy,  and  no  one  ever  had  any 
peace  of  mind,  for  wondering  what  she  might  be  up  to  next. 
Being  a  tomboy  sounded  very  well  in  stories,  but  in  reality 
it  was  different.  And  her  language  —  you  would  never  im 
agine  that  a  child's  lips  could  utter  such  words!  It  was  a 
wonder  where  she  picked  them  up.  But  you  couldn't  keep 
her  at  home.  And  her  temper!  Well,  it  seemed  as  if  she 
must  have  been  changed  in  the  cradle  by  gipsies ! 

As  for  the  boys,  they  were  strange,  stand-offish  creatures 
who  were  engaged  in  pretending  to  be  men.  They  even 
hated  to  be  asked  where  they  were  going  in  the  evening. 

Jane,  visiting  her  sister,  noted  her  obscure  grief.  "  El 
len,"  she  said,  "  you  can't  expect  babies  to  stay  babies  for 
ever.  Eddie  is  fifteen  years  old,  isn't  he?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen,  "But  I  wish—" 

"  I  know  you'd  like  to  keep  them  babies,  but  you  can't." 

«•  I  wish  — "  said  Ellen. 

"What?" 

"  I  don't  exactly  know." 

Perhaps  it  was  in  answer  to  her  wish  that  another  baby 
was  born,  the  next  year  —  a  frail  boy  with  the  bluest  of 
eyes. 


Ellen  Dreams  21 


'*  Fm  going  to  name  this  baby  myself,"  declared  Ellen. 
The  other  children  had  been  named  by  her  husband  — 
prosaically,  she  thought. 

"  All  right.  Name  him  Percy  if  you  want  to,"  said  Adam. 
For  some  reason  the  idea  of  naming  a  boy  Percy  was  con 
sidered,  in  southwestern  Illinois,  humorous.  The  remark 
meant  that  Adam  had  other  things  to  think  about,  and  could 
not  turn  from  considering  them  even  to  avert  such  a  comic 
tragedy  as  naming  his  son  Percy. 

Adam  was  thinking  about  his  butcher  shop.  It  was  on 
the  point  of  failure.  He  had  in  the  exuberance  of  party 
loyalty  told  several  good  customers,  who  happened  to  be 
Democrats,  that  they  were  traitors  and  ought  by  rights  to 
be  strung  up  to  the  nearest  lamp-post;  and  they  had  taken 
their  trade  to  the  other  shop,  and  failed  to  settle  their  out 
standing  accounts  with  Adam. 

Ellen,  dreaming  over  her  blue-eyed  boy,  decided  at  last 
on  a  fitting  name.  It  came  to  her  like  a  flash  of  happy 
augury : —  Felix^  Felix  for  happiness. 

That  night  the  child  had  the  croup,  and  for  three  years 
was  almost  continuously  ill. 


Ill  Shadow-Shapes 


SCARLET  fever.  .  .  .  Measles.  .  .  .  Whooping-cough. 
.  .  .  Stomach-troubles.  .  .  .  Ear-ache.  .  .  .  Colds.  .  .  . 
Medicine.  Bitter  and  sticky  stuff.  "  Put  out  your 
tongue." 

A  bedquilt  world,  with  the  vast  squares  of  the  quilted 
coverlet  stretching  endlessly  before  him.  Shapes  of  people 
going  tiptoe,  to  and  fro,  in  the  yellow  lamplight.  Whispers. 
Medicine  bottles,  tall  and  short,  red  and  black  and  brown, 
on  a  chair  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  Flowers  on  the  wall 
paper.  Cracks  in  the  ceiling.  Pain  and  sleep.  Dreams.  .  .  . 

From  this  background  Felix  emerged  at  times  to  play 
quietly  about  the  house,  sitting  preferably  in  a  corner  with 
his  toys  and  picture-books.  More  rarely,  he  went  out  into 
the  yard  to  play,  staying  near  the  kitchen-door,  where  his 
mother  could  see  him  and  not  be  worried.  Outside  of  the 
house  he  seldom  ventured. 

In  the  house  lived  Mamma.  She  carried  him  to  bed,  and 
would  say  "  poetry-pieces  "  to  him  before  he  went  to  sleep 
if  he  asked  her,  and  she  gave  him  bread-'n'-butter-'n'-sugar 
between  meals.  She  was  beautiful  and  kind,  and  never 
cross  with  him.  Sometimes  she  would  play  with  him.  Then 
she  was  the  nicest  person  in  the  world,  and  his  very  own 
Mamma.  But  at  other  times,  when  he  came  eagerly  to  her 
with  his  picture-book  or  his  toys,  she  would  say,  "  Run 
along,  darling,  I'm  talking  to  Papa."  She  was  a  different 
person  then,  not  his  own  at  all,  but  a  stranger;  and  he 
would  go  away,  grieving  and  hurt. 

Papa  was  in  the  house  only  at  night  and  on  Sundays. 
He  worked  in  the  woollen-mills.  Sometimes  when  he  came 

22 


Shadow-Shapes  23 

home  at  night,  after  Felix  had  rushed  eagerly  to  pull  off  his 
big  felt  boots,  he  would  take  Felix  on  his  knee  while  Mamma 
was  getting  supper  ready,  and  tell  him  stories  about  the 
war.  Almost  always  he  was  nice  and  kind  and  funny ;  but 
sometimes  he  was  fierce  and  terrible.  He  whipped  Ann 
sometimes  —  but  that  was  because  she  had  been  a  bad  girl. 
He  never  whipped  Felix.  Felix  was  a  good  little  boy.  His 
mother  always  said  so. 

Ann  was  his  sister.  She  went  to  school,  and  when  she 
came  home  in  the  afternoon  she  would  dash  in,  throw  down 
her  school-books,  and  dash  out  again  to  play.  She  was  al 
ways  late  to  supper,  and  Papa  would  say,  "  Where's  that 
girl  of  yours  ?  She  ought  to  be  helping  you  with  the  house 
work.  Off  gadding  again,  I  suppose.  Why  do  you  let  her 
run  wild  like  that  ?  "  And  Mamma  would  say,  "  I  can't  do 
a  thing  with  her  any  more.  I  can't  imagine  what's  come 
over  her,  she  used  to  be  such  a  nice  child,  with  such  pretty 
manners.  Now  she  doesn't  mind  a  thing  I  tell  her."  Felix 
shared  this  grown-up  disapproval  of  Ann.  She  was  always 
teasing  him  and  making  him  cry,  and  then  calling  him  a 
cry-baby. 

Jim  was  one  of  his  big  brothers.  He  went  to  school,  like 
Ann,  but  he  was  very  different,  and  much  more  grown-up. 
He  was  quiet  and  dignified.  Felix  admired  him.  He  was 
always  reproving  Felix  for  spilling  things  on  his  clothes,  and 
Felix  despaired  of  ever  being  like  him. 

Ed  was  his  oldest  brother.  He  was  a  man  like  Papa,  and 
worked  in  the  woollen-mills.  He  was  very  nice  to  Felix. 
He  would  bring  home  little  bits  of  coloured  wool,  red  and 
yellow  and  blue,  and  give  them  to  Felix  to  play  with.  He 
would  draw  pictures  for  Felix,  and  sometimes  he  gave  him 
pennies. 

Sack  Sheets  was  the  hired  girl.  Her  real  name  was 
Sarah,  but  everybody  called  her  Sack.  She  scrubbed  Felix's 
ears  until  he  cried,  and  never  would  let  him  come  to  the  table 
without  washing  his  hands.  She  told  him  queer  things, 
which  he  did  not  quite  believe,  because  when  he  asked  Papa 


24  Moon-Calf 

or  Mamma  about  them  they  laughed  at  him.  He  had  once 
tried  to  find  out  for  himself,  when  she  told  him  you  could 
catch  birds  by  putting  salt  on  their  tails,  but  he  had  not  been 
able  to  get  close  enough  to  a  bird  with  his  handful  of  salt  to 
find  out.  When  he  asked  Papa  if  it  were  really  true,  and 
confessed  that  he  had  tried  it,  Papa  laughed  at  him  so 
loudly  that  he  sullenly  resolved  never  to  make  himself 
ridiculous  by  asking  questions  again.  After  that  he  just 
thought  about  things  by  himself. 

The  pigeons  and  the  cow  Felix  never  really  got  acquainted 
with ;  they  were  sold  when  he  was  very  young  —  just  before 
the  family  moved,  to  another  house  that  was  not  so  big  as 
the  one  they  had  been  living  in.  But  always  there  was  the 
cat  —  an  old  grey  cat  named  Corbett,  after  the  "  champion  " 
that  Ed  and  Jim  were  always  talking  about.  Corbett  was 
Felix's  playmate:  Felix  talked  to  him  freely  and  confi 
dentially,  and  wept  into  his  fur  when  he  had  been  scolded. 

All  of  these  beings,  except  Corbett  the  cat,  were  somewhat 
strange  to  Felix.  They  were  part  of  a  world  which  he  did 
not  understand  and  in  which  he  was  never  quite  at  ease. 
In  that  world  Felix  moved  clumsily  —  mistaking  what  he 
had  been  told  to  do,  dropping  and  breaking  things  he  was 
asked  to  carry,  being  blamed  and  laughed  at.  Even  his 
mother  seemed  at  times  to  belong  to  that  outside  world, 
and  he  had  a  queer  resentment  against  her,  which  died  down 
and  was  forgotten  and  then  flickered  up  again,  because  of 
her  desertion  of  him  at  such  times.  It  was  not  enough  that 
she  continued  to  serve  and  love  him  —  Felix  felt  that  she 
ought  to  belong  to  him  wholly  and  live  with  him  in  his 
world. 


Felix's  world  was  a  world  of  dreams.  He  had  gone  to 
sleep  looking  at  the  discoloured  cracks  in  the  ceiling  and  the 
flowers  in  the  wall-paper,  and  had  seen  them  move  and 
change  fantastically,  and  merge  into  the  shapes  of  sleep. 
He  had  sat  on  the  floor  gazing  into  the  coals  of  the  open 


Shadow-Shapes  25 

fireplace  until  those  radiant  doors  of  fire  had  opened  and 
let  him  into  a  grotto  of  fantasy,  and  the  glowing  transforma 
tions  of  the  dying  embers  became  the  changing  landscapes  of 
a  place  that  never  was.  Moving  tree-tops  and  clouds  had 
taken  him  away  to  that  land,  and  the  little  rivulet  of  water 
that  flowed  down  the  street  past  the  house  after  a  rain 
could  carry  him  there.  It  was  a  land  of  shapes  which 
changed  and  lived  more  vividly  than  anything  in  the  real 
world,  and  among  which  he  was  mysteriously  happy. 

Very  slowly  pictures  in  books  began  to  mean  something 
to  him.  His  mother  had  shown  him  the  pictures  of  the 
Three  Bears  in  his  fairy-book  many  times,  and  told  him 
that  this  was  the  Great  Big  Bear,  and  this  Goldilocks,  before 
he  could  understand  what  she  meant.  Ed's  pictures  were 
different,  for  he  drew  Corbett  the  cat,  and  Papa  coming 
home  in  the  snow  with  his  big  boots  on,  and  birds  sitting 
on  a  fence.  Felix  had  seen  these  things  and  he  could  un 
derstand  them.  He  thought  Ed  a  wonderful  person  for 
being  able  to  draw  them,  and  was  always  asking  for  a  new 
picture  of  Corbett  the  cat.  But  he  did  not  feel  the  real 
magic  of  pictures  until  one  day  in  an  illustrated  paper  he 
found  a  drawing  of  a  ship  with  its  sails  full  of  wind, 
splashing  the  water  about  its  bow.  He  was  thrilled,  for 
this  picture  moved.  It  was  like  the  clouds  and  the  tree- 
tops  and  the  changing  shapes  in  the  coals.  It  moved,  and 
carried  him  away  with  it,  out  of  this  world,  into  his  own. 
He  took  the  pictured  ship  to  bed  with  him,  and  carried  it 
to  the  table,  and  refused  to  give  it  up  even  for  a  moment. 
Sack  Sheets,  the  hired  girl,  complained  that  she  had  to  wash 
one  of  his  hands  while  he  held  that  picture  in  the  other.  It 
became  grimy  and  tattered ;  but  it  remained  the  most  won 
derful  thing  in  his  life,  and  he  refused  to  be  comforted 
when,  having  forgotten  it  somewhere  one  day,  he  could  not 
find  it  again.  He  cried  himself  to  sleep  every  night  for  a 
week  after  that,  and  was  only  half  consoled  when  Ed  bought 
him  a  big  book  full  of  coloured  pictures  of  the  American 
Navy.  These  battleships  were  not  that  dream-ship  of  his. 


26  Moon-Calf 

But  they  weaned  him  from  his  grief.  He  made  a  fleet  of 
them  and  manoeuvred  them  about  the  kitchen  floor,  be 
coming  very  angry  with  his  mother  if  she  stepped  on  one 
of  them.  Then  suddenly  the  ships  lost  their  interest  for 
him ;  he  had  found  something  else. 

It  was  a  picture  of  a  man  standing  up  and  waving  a  sword. 
It  fascinated  Felix  just  as  the  picture  of  the  ship  had  done. 
But  when  it  inevitably  was  lost,  he  did  not  mourn  it.  He 
found  himself  a  wooden  stick  which  he  waved  above  his 
head,  strutting  about  the  kitchen  and  shouting  "  Hi !  "  and 
"  Now  then !  "  His  father  took  an  interest  in  this  game, 
and  undertook  to  teach  him  how  the  sabre  was  used  in  the 
Third  Illinois  Cavalry  during  the  war.  Felix,  flattered  by 
these  attentions,  allowed  himself  to  be  taught.  "  High  cut 
for  cavalry  —  charge!"  "Low  cut  for  infantry  — 
charge !  "  and  Felix  galloped  about  the  kitchen  on  a  broom 
stick,  waving  his  wooden  sabre  in  more  or  less  the  correct 
military  fashion.  But  something  of  the  glamour  was  gone 
from  these  supervised  and  realistic  proceedings.  And  then 
Felix  fell  sick  with  one  of  his  periodical  ailments,  and  when 
he  recovered  was  less  boisterous.  Perhaps  it  was  partly 
due  to  an  incident  that  occurred  on  his  first  day  outdoors, 
when,  after  giving  the  command  to  himself  in  a  loud  voice, 
he  charged  the  asparagus  bushes  —  only  to  trip  on  his 
broomstick  and  fall  painfully  on  his  nose ;  and  then  heard 
the  jeering  laughter  of  a  group  of  little  boys  just  outside 
the  fence  who  had  been  watching  his  military  game  unseen. 
"  High  cut  for  calv'ry !  High  cut  for  calv'ry !  "  they  called 
after  him  as  he  went  crying  back  into  the  house. 

He  had  always  liked  to  have  his  mother  tell  him  stories, 
even  though  the  stories  she  told  did  not,  as  narratives,  cap 
ture  his  attention.  Her  repertoire  was  limited  to  half-a- 
dozen  nursery  fables,  such  as  Jack  the  Giant  Killer  and 
Little  Red  Riding  Hood,  together  with  a  few  reminiscences 
of  her  own  childhood.  She  was  not  a  good  story-teller, 
and  Felix  did  not  pay  to  her  stories  the  strict  attention  he 
paid  to  his  father's  tales  of  the  Civil  War,  and  of  humorous 


Shadow-Shapes  27 

happenings  in  the  mills  and  in  the  town.  These  he  under 
stood  more  fully  than  his  mother's  fairy-tales,  to  which  he 
listened  with  a  wandering-  and  half-dreaming  mind.  But 
in  the  fairy-tales  nevertheless  there  were  passages  that  fas 
cinated  him  —  scattered  among  incomprehensible  and  dull 
untruths.  Felix  did  not  believe  in  Giants,  nor  in  animals 
that  talked.  These  seemed  to  him  akin  to  the  story  of 
catching  birds  by  putting  salt  on  their  tails,  and  Santa 
Claus  coming  down  the  chimney  on  Christmas  Eve  —  they 
were  things  which  people  pretended  to  believe  but  knew  all 
the  time  were  not  really  true.  But  in  those  same  stories 
were  true  things,  too  —  things  about  caves  and  jewels,  and 
palaces  under  the  sea,  and  princes  with  magic  swords.  Out 
of  these  glimmering  hints  Felix  wove,  as  he  listened,  his 
own  stories,  clothing  the  nakedness  of  who  knows  what 
infantile  and  primitive  notions  in  the  shining  fabrics  of 
romantic  fantasy.  .  .  .  Sometimes,  as  he  dreamed  to  him 
self  in  a  corner  after  one  of  his  mother's  stories,  he  saw  a 
cave,  full  of  shining  jewels  and  heaps  of  gold,  and  a  throne 
in  the  centre,  upon  which  sat  a  beautiful  young  queen,  with 
a  kind  face  like  his  mother's.  Fierce  bearded  men  with 
swords  stood  about  her.  And  Felix  himself,  bound  hand 
and  foot,  lay  on  the  floor  at  her  feet.  These  men  were 
going  to  torture  him;  though  perhaps  the  dreadful  instru 
ments  with  which  they  crowded  around  him  were  no  more 
than  fantastic  dream-versions  of  the  instruments  which  doc 
tors  had  thrust  into  his  mouth  and  nose  and  ears.  .  .  .  And 
he  had  to  endure  these  torments  heroically  for  her  sake,  for 
the  sake  of  the  beautiful  queen  who  sat  upon  the  throne  and 
smiled  down  at  him.  .  .  .  Such  strange  fancies  as  these  he 
*vould  dwell  upon  fascinatedly  for  hours,  and  return  to  day 
ifter  day,  expanding  the  incident  with  variations  and  elab- 
>  rations  into  an  epic  cycle,  until  the  flavour  of  it  was  no 
onger  so  intoxicatingly  sweet  in  his  mind.  And  all  the 
vhile  he  would  sing  to  himself  as  the  recurring  chorus  of 
hese  adventures  some  quaint,  senseless  perversion  of  the 
poetry-pieces"  which  his  mother  said  to  him  at  bed-time: 


28  Moon-Calf 

"Little  Boy  Blue, 
He  put  on  his  shoe, 
He  put  on  his  shoe, 
He  put  on  his  shoe." 

One  day  they  moved  to  another  house,  and  rummaging  in 
the  garret  he  found,  among  some  dusty  school-books,  a 
tattered  copy  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  There  were  pictures 
in  it  that  he  liked,  and  he  asked  his  mother  to  tell  him  what 
the  book  said  about  them.  She  read  him  the  story  of 
Sindbad  the  Sailor,  and  the  story  of  the  Caliph  Haroun  al 
Raschid  and  the  Three  Ladies  of  Bagdad.  His  imagination 
leaped  to  the  height  of  this  new  conception  of  adventure, 
and  henceforth  his  favourite  roles  in  his  own  play-stories 
were  those  of  the  disguised  Caliph  and  the  luckless  sailor  of 
Persian  romance.  His  mother  had  never  been  able  to  make 
head  or  tail  of  the  stories  which  he  had  sometimes  breath 
lessly  shared  with  her,  so  mixed  up  were  they  of  all  the 
stories  she  had  ever  told  him  and  of  sheer  foolish  nonsense. 
But  these  new  Arabian  adventures  of  his  she  could  under 
stand  and  enjoy  taking  part  in,  and  his  happiest  moments 
were  those  in  which  she  played  for  him,  on  the  floor  of  the 
kitchen  in  some  interval  of  cooking  and  baking  and  washing 
dishes,  the  parts  of  the  Three  Ladies  of  Bagdad,  or  a 
Princess  captured  by  a  Genie  and  carried  away  to  an  Island 
upon  which  Sindbad  the  Sailor  had  just  been  wrecked. 

Felix  grew  accustomed  to  dramatize  his  play,  and  made 
more  and  more  demands  upon  his  mother  as  a  playmate. 
But  then  Sack  Sheets  went  away,  and  his  mother  had  to  do 
all  the  housework  and  did  not  have  time  to  play  with  Felix. 
He  was  incredulous  of  her  excuses,  and  hurt  at  the  hurried 
and  impatient  way  in  which  she  sometimes  refused  his  eager 
demands.  He  grew  estranged  from  her,  and  would  not 
even  ask  her  to  read  stories  to  him  any  more,  preferring 
to  find  his  own  themes  for  make-believe.  He  still  cut  out 
paper-dolls,  as  his  mother  called  them,  from  the  illustrated 
papers.  The  pictures  in  the  Arabian  Nights  had  led  him, 
in  selecting  these  figures,  to  incline  toward  pictures  of  ladies 


Shadow-Shapes  29 

in  a  more  or  less  undressed  state;  and  when  one  day  she 
looked  over  the  collection  in  his  cigar-box  and  burned  up 
in  the  kitchen  stove  half  a  dozen  of  his  choicest  princesses, 
and  would  not  tell  him  why,  he  felt  her  to  be  a  hostile 
stranger.  So  when  he  found  a  beautiful  princess  in  a  pocket 
of  one  of  Jim's  old  coats  —  in  reality  it  was  the  picture  of 
a  burlesque  actress,  in  tights,  from  a  packet  of  cigarettes  — 
he  hid  it  away  where  his  mother  could  never  find  it,  and  the 
consciousness  of  this  secret  deepened  his  alienation  from 
her. 

One  day  his  sister  Ann  brought  into  the  house  a  copy  of  a 
lurid  "  family  story  paper."  On  the  front  page  was  a  pic 
ture  representing  a  tall  moustached  man  advancing  threat 
eningly  upon  a  lovely  lady,  who  stood  defying  him  with 
outstretched  arm.  Felix  looked  at  the  picture  for  a  long 
time,  finding  the  elements  of  one  of  his  queer  stories  in  it. 
He  began  to  enact  the  scene,  taking  by  turns  the  part  of  the 
fierce  man  with  clenched  teeth  and  clawing  fingers,  and  the 
proud  and  scornful  lady.  But  he  felt  the  need  of  words  to 
accompany  the  game,  and  so  he  asked  his  sister  what  it 
said  under  the  picture.  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan,  said 
Ethel,"  she  read  to  him.  The  words  satisfied  Felix,  and  he 
went  off  repeating  them  in  a  dramatic  tone  —  misremember- 
ing  and  mispronouncing  the  name  Satan  as  though  it  were 
spelled  "  satin."  That  night  before  supper,  unconscious  of 
the  presence  of  the  family,  he  was  at  his  play,  when  his 
mother  asked  suddenly,  "  What  are  you  saying,  Felix  ?  " — 
and  he  realized  that  he  was  being  an  object  of  amusement  to 
them  all.  He  shamefacedly  repeated  his  verbal  formula, 
'*  Get  thee  behind  me,  Sattin,"  and  when  they  asked  where 
he  had  got  it,  he  defiantly  brought  them  the  paper.  Ann 
giggled  and  explained.  The  paper  was  passed  from  hand 
to  hand,  and  everybody  laughed  loudly.  His  mother  told 
him,  in  a  kindly  enough  way,  how  the  name  Satan  was 
pronounced,  and  who  Satan  was.  But  Felix,  who  was 
struggling  to  keep  back  the  tears  of  humiliation,  felt  only 
that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself  again.  Thereafter  he 


30  Moon-Calf 

was  careful  not  to  act  out  his  play  aloud  or  in  his  own 
person.  He  went  back  to  his  old  habit  of  dreaming  quietly 
in  a  corner. 

He  would  find  some  picture  that  interested  him,  in  an  old 
magazine  or  newspaper,  and  cut  it  carefully  out  with  his 
mother's  scissors.  Then  he  would  put  this  new  picture  with 
his  collection  of  old  ones,  treasured  in  his  cigar-box,  and 
slowly  sort  them  over,  putting  them  together  in  groups  of 
twos  and  threes.  All  at  once  some  happy  juxtaposition  of 
pictures  would  strike  his  fancy,  and  sitting  there  before  a 
few  paper  figments  —  representing,  it  might  be,  a  fashion 
able  lady  advertising  the  latest  shawl,  and  a  man  demonstrat 
ing  the  accuracy  of  a  certain  kind  of  rifle  —  he  would  forget 
the  world  and  lose  himself  in  some  dream  in  which  he  ac 
companied  these  magic  figures.  As  he  looked  at  them,  they 
began  to  move,  they  grew  larger,  they  created  about  them  a 
world  of  their  own,  they  spoke,  saying  things  which  had 
meaning  only  in  their  world.  Felix  listened,  entranced. 
With  moving  but  silent  lips,  and  eyes  focused  on  scenes  not 
present  in  reality,  he  lived  with  them  their  vivid  and  beau 
tiful  life. 

3 

Most  alien  of  all  to  Felix  was  the  world  of  outdoors, 
where  boys  played  games  he  did  not  know  how  to  play,  and 
mocked  at  him  and  hurt  him.  He  made  explorations  only 
a  few  times  into  that  outdoor  world,  and  was  glad  to  come 
back  to  the  house  and  play  with  his  paper-dolls.  He  was 
happiest  when  he  was  let  alone;  then,  making  up  stories 
and  living  in  them,  he  lost  the  sense  of  helplessness  and 
bewilderment  that  made  him  so  miserable  outside.  If  they 
would  only  let  him  alone ! 

But  he  was  always  being  dragged  out  of  his  corner.  One 
Sunday  afternoon,  when  he  was  four-and-a-half  years  old, 
his  sister,  aged  twelve,  took  him  out  for  a  walk,  in  spite 
of  his  protests.  '*  A  little  outdoors  won't  hurt  you,"  she 
said.  But  he  felt  miserably  sure  that  he  was  going  to  be 
got  into  trouble.  And  sure  enough,  Ann  met  some  of  "  her 


Shadow-Shapes  31 

crowd,"  who  told  Ann  to  come  along  —  one  of  the  boys  had 
climbed  in  the  back  window  of  the  "  opera  house  "  and  un 
locked  the  door,  and  they  would  all  sneak  in  and  play. 

"  What'll  I  do  with  this  ?  "  she  asked  —  meaning  Felix,  as 
he  realized  with  helpless  humiliation. 

"  Oh,  bring  it  along !  "  they  said. 

The  *'  opera  house,"  a  small  wooden  theatre  and  gym 
nasium,  stood  in  the  midst  of  a  large  open  space.  Casually, 
as  if  merely  "  cutting  across  the  lot,"  the  adventurers  walked 
past  the  back  door,  glanced  about,  and  slipped  quickly  in 
side. 

Felix  was  led  by  the  hand  into  a  darkened  space  in  which 
the  shouts  and  laughter  of  boys  and  girls  echoed  terrify- 
ingly.  When  his  eyes  had  adjusted  themselves  to  the  twi 
light,  he  was  startled  to  find  himself  apparently  on  the  brink 
of  a  vast  gulf.  His  sister  had  led  him  out  to  the  edge  of 
the  stage  and  was  calling  down  to  somebody  in  the  audi 
torium.  Felix  shrank  back.  Just  then,  out  in  the  half- 
darkness,  he  saw  somebody  high  in  the  air,  swinging  toward 
him  and  then  away  from  him. 

"  Come  here,  I  can't  hear  you ! "  called  Ann.  And, 
as  if  the  flying  figure  had  made  a  leap  through  the  air, 
it  swept  closer  to  them,  past  them,  caught  at  something 
in  the  air  above  their  heads,  turned  upside  down,  hung  for 
a  moment  by  its  toes,  whirled  upright  again,  and  dropped 
lightly  to  the  floor  beside  them.  It  was  one  of  the  boys, 
who  had  been  practising  on  one  of  the  '*  flying  rings  "  which 
extended  the  length  of  the  building,  and  who  had  finished 
with  a  demonstration  of  his  skill  on  the  trapeze.  Felix  felt 
dizzy. 

"  Pretty  good,"  said  Ann  carelessly. 

"  Well  now,"  said  the  boy,  "  we've  all  been  hearing  about 
the  girl-circus  you  and  Nellie  and  Rose  have  been  having  in 
the  Caldwell  barn,  and  how  good  you  are  on  the  trapeze. 
And  we'd  like  to  see.  Here's  your  chance !  " 

Another  boy  came  up.  "  Come  on  now,  Ann,  let's  see 
you  perform.  I  dare  you  !  " 


32  Moon-Calf 

The  other  boys  and  girls  took  up  the  cry  —  "Dare  you ! 
Dare  you!" 

Ann,  her  hands  on  her  hips,  looked  at  them  scornfully. 
"You  think  I  don't  dare!  I'd  show  you,  if  it  wasn't  for 
these  clothes !" 

"You  can  wear  mine,"  the  boy  said. 

There  were  shouts  and  laughter,  "Dare  you !" 

"All  right !"  said  Ann.     "Hand  'em  over !" 

There  was  more  laughter,  and  Ann  disappeared  at  the 
back  of  the  stage,  and  presently  emerged  wearing  knee- 
pants.  Cries  of  applause  greeted  her. 

"What '11  7  do  ?"  complained  a  boy's  voice  from  the  back. 
:  "Wear  mine !"  said  Ann.  "You're  welcome  to  'em." 

He  came  out  grotesquely,  wearing  Ann's  petticoat. 
Meanwhile  Ann  had  climbed  into  the  trapeze,  and  presently 
she  was  swinging  back  and  forth  over  their  heads,  hanging 
by  her  knees.  This  did  not  surprise  Felix.  He  was  past 
being  surprised  now.  This  was  all  part  of  that  strange 
outer  world  which  he  did  not  like.  He  wanted  to  be  back 
home. 

Ann  had  just  transferred  herself  from  the  trapeze  to  one 
of  the  flying  rings  when  some  one  came  running  in  with  an 
alarm.  "Quick,  everybody  —  get  out!  Pete  the  watch 
man's  coming!" 

There  was  a  rush  for  the  back  door.  Only  Felix,  and  the 
boy  with  Ann's  petticoat  on,  stayed,  while  Ann,  caught 
midflight  on  the  flying  ring,  swung  to  the  limit  of  its  oscilla 
tion  and  then  back  again.  She  made  a  flying  leap  to  the 
trapeze,  dropped  beside  Felix  and  the  boy,  and  said, 
"There's "no  time  to  change  back  now,  Dick!  We'll  skin 
over  to  Tom's  woodshed  —  no  one'll  see  us,"  and  she  fled 
with  him  to  the  door,  calling  back  to  Felix,  "Hurry, 
hurry !" 

Felix  plunged  into  the  darkness  after  them.  He  mistook 
his  way,  and  started  to  push  himself  between  two  back-drops 
against  the  wall.  He  stumbled  through  the  narrow  chasm, 
pushing  at  the  canvas  walls  on  each  side  of  him.  At  the 


Shadow-Shapes  33 

end  was  a  wall  hung  with  ropes.  Felix  groped  his  way 
around  the  edge  of  the  canvas  and  started  back  between  two 
more  pieces  of  scenery.  The  place  was  very  still  now,  and 
Felix  knew  that  he  was  alone  and  lost.  He  went  on, 
stumbling  and  frightened.  The  passage  seemed  endless. 
He  stopped.  He  had  known  something  terrible  would  hap 
pen  to  him  if  he  left  the  yard.  He  sat  down  and  cried. 

His  sister,  coming  back,  found  him  there  a  minute  later. 
And  because  of  that  lost  minute,  Pete  the  watchman  found 
her  there,  too  —  in  boy's  clothes. 

He  was  scandalized,  and  declared  he  was  going  straight 
to  her  father  and  tell  him  about  her. 

"  Damn !  "  she  said.  "  Come  on,  you  little  fool.  Damn ! 
Damn ! " 

'•  And  I'll  tell  him  that  too,"  said  Pete. 

On  the  way  home,  she  shook  Felix  savagely.  But  she  did 
not  skin  over  into  Tom's  woodshed.  Instead,  she  walked 
defiantly  down  the  main  street  of  the  town,  with  Felix 
bawling  loudly  at  her  side.  She  stalked  into  her  home. 

"  I've  only  one  thing  to  say,"  she  declared  to  her  dis 
tressed  mother.  "  If  Pa  beats  me,  I'll  run  away." 

4 

Her  father  did  beat  her.  Felix  was  taken  into  the  par 
lour,  and  held  tight  in  his  weeping  mother's  arms  while  it 
was  being  done. 

Ann  was  a  husky  little  girl,  and  her  father  was  tired  after 
his  long  day's  work  in  the  woollen-mills,  and  the  beating 
was  hardly  a  disciplinary  success.  Finally,  because  she 
kicked  and  bit  and  scratched,  she  was  taken  upstairs  and 
shut  in  the  garret.  Then,  red  and  angry  and  stern-looking, 
Felix's  father  came  into  the  parlour.  "  Is  supper  ready  ?  " 
he  asked. 

Felix  could  not  eat.  As  soon  as  possible  he  slipped  away 
and  went  unobserved  up  the  stairs  to  the  garret-door.  He 
could  hear  Ann  crying  inside.  The  garret,  where  the  wal 
nuts  came  from,  had  always  seemed  to  him  a  mysterious  and 
delightful  place.  But  now,  filled  with  the  sound  of  weeping, 


34  Moon-Calf 

it  became  dreadful.  Felix  sat  down  on  the  top  step  and 
cried  too,  helplessly  and  silently.  He  did  not  want  his  sister 
to  know  he  was  there,  because  he  thought  she  would  blame 
everything  on  him. 

Suddenly  he  remembered  a  story  his  mother  had  read  to 
him,  the  story  of  the  cruel  Bishop  Hatto  shut  up  in  his 
Tower  and  eaten  alive  by  rats.  He  wondered  if  there  were 
any  rats  in  the  garret.  Probably  there  were.  He  had  often 
hated  his  sister,  and  wished  that  some  dreadful  fate  would 
befall  her,  but  now  in  the  presence  of  what  would  have 
seemed  this  afternoon  a  just  punishment  for  her  wicked 
ness,  he  felt  sick  with  horror.  .  .  .  The  sound  of  weeping 
inside  grew  louder,  became  hysterical,  and  died  away  in 
broken  sobs.  Then  it  rose  again,  the  crying  of  a  frightened 
child,  a  sick  screaming  of  despair.  And  to  Felix  his  sis 
ter  was  no  longer  at  this  moment  a  part  of  the  grown-up 
world,  to  be  hated  or  feared,  but  some  one  like  himself. 
She  beat  on  the  door  with  her  fists  and  gasped :  "  Let  me 
out !  let  me  out !  " 

Felix  looked  at  the  door.  It  was  not  locked,  but  held  shut 
by  a  board  braced  between  it  and  the  wall  of  the  garret- 
landing  opposite.  As  Felix  looked  at  the  board,  a  great 
and  terrible  idea  occurred  to  him :  to  knock  down  the  board 
and  let'  ner  out.  Impulsively  he  struck  at  it  with  both  his 
fists.  It  slipped,  fell,  and  caught  again  on  the  lower  panel 
of  the  door.  Another  blow  would  clear  it  away.  But  sud 
denly  Felix  grew  afraid,  and  hurried  down  the  stairs. 

He  paused  at  the  bottom  and  looked  back.  He  had  de 
fied  the  mysterious  and  terrible  order  of  his  universe.  To 
have  hit  that  board  was  an  act  of  rebellion  against  the  law, 
cruel  but  righteous,  which  ruled  his  little  world.  He  was 
trembling.  He  felt  as  one  feels  who  has  committed  crime, 
treason  and  sacrilege. 

The  sobbing  grew  fainter.  Then  there  was  silence. 
"  Maybe  she  is  dead,"  he  thought.  He  wanted  to  run  away. 
But  instead,  he  sat  down  on  the  bottom  step.  And  into  his 
mind  there  came  a  picture,  as  vivid  as  the  pictures  of  his 


Shadow-Shapes  35 

play-dreams,  in  which  he  saw  a  vast  darkened  space,  and 
across  that,  swinging  lightly  and  airily  on  a  thread  of  silver 
wire,  a  shape  that  was  like  that  of  the  Youngest  Princess 
in  his  picture-doll  collection.  As  she  swung  nearer  he  could 
see  that  she  was  hanging  by  one  bent  knee,  and  her  arms 
were  outspread.  Below  her  was  darkness  and  space,  and 
Felix  felt  her  danger,  but  only  as  a  strange  and  beautiful 
pang,  a  cool  shiver  of  delight.  She  swung  toward  him,  and 
then  away,  with  a  smile.  And  in  that  smile  there  was 
something  new.  Felix  had  known  only  his  mother's  smile, 
fond  and  tender  and  warm,  making  him  all  hers.  There 
was  something  in  the  smile  of  this  girl  in  his  dream  that 
was  cool  and  far-off,  like  the  shine  of  the  stars.  She  was 
not  thinking  of  Felix,  she  did  not  belong  to  him.  It  was 
a  smile  which  said,  "  Look  at  me !  See  what  I  am  doing ! 
Look !  Look ! "  And  suddenly  the  picture  changed,  and 
it  was  Felix  himself  who  was  flying  aloft  through  the  air, 
and  gazing  down  at  multitudes,  and  crying,  "  Look  at  me ! 
Look  at  me !  " 

The  dream  faded,  and  then,  without  understanding  why, 
Felix  ascended  the  stairs  and  pulled  away  the  board. 

"Who's  there?"  whispered  Ann. 

The  door  was  pushed  open,  she  looked  out.  *'  Oh,  it's 
you !  "  she  said  in  surprise. 

She  had  recovered  herself.  Her  childishness  was  gone. 
She  was  again  a  part  of  the  strange  grown-up  world  that 
Felix  feared.  He  drew  away  from  her  as  she  put  out  her 
hand:  he  was  afraid  she  was  going  to  shake  him  again. 
But  she  put  her  arms  around  him  and  kissed  him.  '*  You're 
a  nice  little  tyke,"  she  said. 

'*  Are  you  —  are  you  going  to  run  away  ? "  he  asked 
timidly. 

She  laughed.     "  I  guess  I  won't  —  this  time,"  she  said. 


IV  First  Flights 


FELIX  discovered,  one  morning  when  he  was  not  yet 
five  years  old,  that  he  could  read.  He  had  been 
looking  at  his  favourite  picture  in  the  Yellow  Fairy 
Book.  He  had  said  to  his  mother  so  often,  "  Mamma,  read 
me  that  part,"  that  he  knew  the  passage  beside  it  almost  by 
heart.  He  put  his  finger  on  the  printed  words,  one  after 
another,  and  spoke  them  aloud :  "  The  —  Prince  —  took  — 
her  —  hand — "  He  stopped,  with  the  realization  that  he 
had  been  reading.  It  was  so  wonderful  that  the  thought  of 
it  made  him  feel  faint.  He  went  back  and  traversed  the 
words  again  with  his  finger,  saying  them  hesitatingly.  With 
a  kind  of  fearful  awe  he  proceeded  down  the  page. 

Yes,  it  was  true  —  he  could  read !  And  suddenly  he  be 
gan  to  cry  out  in  piercing  tones,  "  Mamma  !  Mamma !  " 

She  came  running,  her  arms  white  with  flour  from  bread- 
making. 

"  I  can  read !     I  can  read !  "  he  cried. 

Hardly  less  excited  than  Felix,  she  sat  down  with  him, 
and  he  demonstrated  the  use  of  his  new  magic  power  before 
her  eyes.  • 

"  You  shall  go  to  school  this  fall,"  she  said,  and  kissed 
him  fondly. 

When  his  father  came  home,  the  demonstration  was  re 
peated  for  his  benefit.  "  You  will  be  going  to  school  be 
fore  we  know  it,"  said  his  father,  patting  Felix's  head. 

Jim  said  he  was  a  little  scholar,  and  that  he  would  have  to 
learn  to  keep  his  face  clean  when  he  went  to  school. 

Ed  gave  him  five  pennies. 

Only  Ann  refused  to  be  an  audience  to  his  accomplish 
ment. 

36 


First  Flights  37 

"  Don't  you  want  to  hear  me  read  ?  "  he  asked,  taking  up 
the  book. 

''Not  on  your  life!"  she  replied. 

His  mother  diplomatically  emphasized  the  importance  of 
the  occasion,  but  she  refused  to  be  impressed.  "  He  can 
read.  Well,  what  of  it?"  she  demanded  scornfully,  and 
dashed  out  of  the  house  to  meet  the  girl  who  was  waiting 
for  her  at  the  gate. 

Felix  was  grieved.  "  Never  mind,"  said  his  mother. 
"  When  you  go  to  school  you  can  read  to  everybody !  " 

So  Felix  came  to  look  forward  to  school  as  a  place  made 
especially  for  him  —  a  place  where  he  would  be  admired 
for  his  talents.  His  first  thought  had  been,  when  he  had 
proved  to  his  mother  that  this  open  sesame  was  really  his, 
that  he  would  use  it  to  read  everything  —  all  the  stories  that 
no  one  had  read  to  him,  the  story-papers  that  Ann  some 
times  brought  home,  the  old  books  in  the  trunk  in  the  attic, 
Papa's  newspaper  —  they  must  all  be  very  interesting  and 
wonderful.  But  now  that  his  attention  had  been  turned  to 
ward  school,  he  took  up  instead  the  old  discarded  '*  readers  " 
that  his  sister  and  brothers  had  used. 

Their  contents  were  not  —  as  he  found  when  he  had 
further  mastered  the  art  of  reading  —  very  interesting;  but 
he  had  a  sense  of  virtue  in  "  studying  "  them.  He  knew 
that  his  family  approved  of  his  doing  so,  and  they  were 
always  willing  to  stop  whatever  they  were  doing  and  tell 
him  what  some  new  word  was,  if  it  was  in  a  school-book. 
If  it  was  his  book  of  fairy-tales  that  he  brought  up  to  them, 
they  were  less  patient.  And  once  his  mother  took  away 
from  him  one  of  the  books  he  had  found  in  the  trunk  in  the 
attic,  one  with  coloured  pictures  that  showed  what  your 
insides  looked  like.  Felix  saw  that  other  books  were  not 
regarded  with  the  same  approval  as  were  school-books;  so 
he  applied  himself  diligently  throughout  the  summer  to 
these,  in  the  expectation  of  reward  at  school  next  fall. 


38  Moon-Calf 


The  first  day  of  school  came.  That  morning  Felix  was 
dressed  carefully  in  the  whitest  of  starched  kilts.  His 
mother  curled  his  yellow  locks  round  her  fingers,  and  stif 
fened  them  with  the  white  of  an  egg.  He  marched  off 
proudly  at  Ann's  side. 

The  happy  journey  was  marred  by  one  unfortunate  en 
counter.  Two  ladies  stopped  to  look  at  Felix,  and  one  of 
them  said  to  Ann,  "  What  beautiful  curls  your  little  brother 
has !  Does  his  hair  curl  that  way  naturally  ?  " 

"  Yes  ma'am,"  said  Ann,  loyally  and  dutifully. 

"  Yes'm,"  corroborated  Felix,  emboldened  to  speak  for 
himself.  "And  mother  fixes  it  with  white-of-egg !  " 

Then  Felix  knew  from  their  smiles,  and  from  his  sister's 
scornful  jerk  at  his  arm,  that  he  had  done  something  fool 
ish.  .  .  .  He  was  overcome  with  confusion  and  shame.  He 
did  not  know  what  it  was,  except  that  the  thing  which  was 
always  happening  to  him  had  happened  again.  He  felt  like 
crying  —  until  he  thought  of  school.  That  would  be  differ 
ent.  He  lifted  his  head. 

They  reached  at  last  the  great  red  brick  building,  at  the 
top  of  the  hill,  and  Felix  took  his  seat  confidently  where  he 
was  told.  He  sat  awaiting  his  opportunity  to  show  every 
body  how  well  he  could  read. 

It  disconcerted  him  that  the  room  was  full  of  other  chil 
dren,  among  whom  he  almost  felt  lost.  Many  of  them 
seemed  to  know  each  other.  Signals  and  whispers  began 
to  flash  back  and  forth  all  about  him.  He  tried  hard  not 
to  feel  strange  and  lonely  there. 

By  way  of  beginning,  they  were  told  to  shut  their  eyes, 
and  the  teacher,  a  plump,  kindly-faced  woman,  passed  up 
and  down  the  aisle,  putting  a  toy  animal  on  each  desk. 
Then  they  opened  their  eyes,  and  each  child  was  called  on 
in  turn  to  tell  the  name  of  the  animal  he  had.  Felix's 
animal  did  not  interest  him.  It  was  a  pig.  He  was  fas 
cinated  by  the  one  on  the  desk  just  ahead  of  him,  a  striped 


First  Flights  39 

zebra.  Felix  wished  he  had  that  one.  When  the  teacher 
called  on  him  he  became  confused,  and  answered  "  Zebra !  " 
A  shout  of  ridicule  arose  about  him,  and  cries  of  "Pig! 
Pig!" 

Felix  was  angry.  Of  course  he  knew  it  was  a  pig.  But 
he  could  not  explain.  The  questioning  had  passed  on,  and 
Felix  and  his  mistake  were  forgotten.  But  Felix  sat  there, 
still  blushing  with  shame  and  anger.  .  .  .  He  had  a  mo 
mentary  flash  of  sick  resentment  against  his  mother,  who 
had  dressed  him  up  that  morning  and  sent  him  off  so  un 
suspectingly  to  this  hateful  place.  .  .  . 

Then  they  all  did  some  exercises,  in  which  they  pretended 
to  aim  and  fire  a  gun.  The  teacher  would  say,  "  Ready  — 
Aim  —  Shoot !  "  Felix  knew  better  than  that,  because  his 
father  had  taught  him  the  manual  of  arms.  He  was 
troubled  about  the  teacher's  ignorance  of  this  important 
matter,  and  finally  spoke  up  boldly  and  told  her  that  the 
command  was  "  Fire  "  instead  of  '*  Shoot."  She  rebuked 
him  for  his  impudence. 

He  disconsolately  occupied  himself  with  making  mous 
taches  on  his  face  with  his  lead-pencil.  He  was  surprised 
and  delighted  at  the  attention  it  attracted,  but  very  much 
ashamed  when  the  teacher  told  him  to  go  and  wash  his 
face.  There  was  a  washbasin  in  the  window  which  he  had 
to  take  down  to  the  pump  in  the  yard.  But  the  basin  had 
some  water  in  it,  and  when  he  took  it  between  his  hands  and 
started  across  the  room,  it  tipped  and  spilled  its  contents 
on  the  floor. 

"  Go  to  the  janitor  and  get  a  mop,"  said  the  teacher. 

Felix  went  out  obediently.  But  he  did  not  know  exactly 
what  a  janitor  was,  or  where  it  might  be,  and  he  dared  not 
go  back  and  ask,  revealing  his  ignorance,  so  he  wandered 
helplessly  and  shyly  all  over  the  building.  At  last  he  ven 
tured  to  ask  a  boy  whom  he  found  out  in  the  yard.  "  He 
is  in  the  furnace-room,  I  suppose,"  said  the  boy.  "  Where 
is  the  furnace-room?"  asked  Felix.  The  boy  told  him 
scornfully. 


40  Moon-Calf 

Felix  found  the  furnace-room  at  last,  but  the  janitor  was 
not  there.  So  Felix  began  to  hunt  him  desperately  all  over 
the  building.  He  could  not  return  to  the  room  without  the 
mop.  After  half  an  hour  he  found  the  janitor  out  on  the 
front  steps,  and  came  back  with  the  mop. 

The  water  had  long  ago  been  wiped  up,  and  the  incident 
forgotten.  At  Felix's  entrance  into  the  busy  room,  mop 
over  shoulder,  everybody  burst  out  laughing.  Felix  stared 
foolishly  at  the  floor,  and  grew  very  red  and  hot. 

"  You  have  caused  us  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  Felix," 
said  the  teacher  gravely.  Felix  had  all  he  could  do  to  keep 
from  bursting  into  tears. 

And  in  the  afternoon,  at  recess,  a  big  boy  of  eight,  named 
Hubert,  took  Felix's  cap  and  ran  down  the  hill  with  it,  and 
would  not  give  it  back.  Felix  followed  him  about,  begging 
for  it,  trying  to  catch  him  when  he  ran,  and  vainly  en 
deavouring  to  snatch  it  when  it  was  held  teasingly  over  his 
head  just  out  of  reach.  Felix  at  last  turned  away,  resolved 
to  humiliate  himself  no  longer.  "  Oh,  here's  your  old 
cap,"  the  boy  said  scornfully,  holding  it  out ;  "  come  and 
get  it." 

Felix  came  —  and  the  sport  began  anew.  Angry  and  cry 
ing,  Felix  started  home. 

His  sister  saw  him  trudging  out  to  the  sidewalk,  and  ran 
to  find  what  was  the  matter. 

"Hubert,  was  it?  —  the  big  coward!"  she  cried.  "I'll 
fix  him!" 

She  returned  with  the  cap  —  after  boxing  Hubert's  ears 
for  him  —  and  flung  it  scornfully  to  Felix,  saying,  "  Why 
don't  you  fight  ?  " 

"  Cry-baby !  "  called  the  boys.  "  His  sister  has  to  fight 
for  him!" 

When  Felix  came  home  that  night  he  avoided  his  mother 
and  sought  the  company  of  Corbett  the  cat  in  a  dark  corner 
of  the  woodshed,  and  cried  bitterly  into  its  comforting  fur. 
School  was  not  what  he  had  expected  it  to  be.  It  was  just 
like  all  the  rest  of  the  outside  world  —  only  more  strange, 


First  Flights  41 

more  cruel,  more  bewildering.     He  resolved  that  he  would 
never  go  there  again. 

3 

Nevertheless  he  did  go.  There  was  no  getting  out  of  it. 
In  the  school-room  it  was  not  so  bad  after  a  while,  for  his 
ability  to  learn  and  remember  his  lessons  did  command  the 
admiration  of  the  teacher.  But  every  day  at  recess,  Hubert 
confiscated  his  cap. 

Ann  refused  to  help  him.  "  You've  got  to  learn  to  look 
out  for  yourself,"  she  said. 

The  school-term  passed  somehow,  and  vacation  came.  It 
was  a  period  of  glorious  freedom  from  the  torments  of 
Hubert.  When  it  was  over,  Felix  dreaded  to  return.  But 
return  he  must. 

The  first  morning  of  the  new  term,  he  came  upon  Hubert 
suddenly  as  he  turned  the  corner  of  the  school  building, 
at  recess.  Felix,  with  a  desperate  memory  of  all  his 
wrongs,  and  with  a  heart  full  of  misery  and  fear  and  rage, 
sprang  suddenly  at  his  tormentor,  striking  wildly  with  both 
fists.  One  of  his  clumsy  and  unexpected  blows  knocked 
out  a  tooth,  and  Hubert  backed  away,  spitting  blood.  Felix 
was  frightened  at  what  he  had  done,  but  still  more  afraid 
of  Hubert's  revenge ;  so  with  a  scream  he  advanced  anew 
upon  his  victim,  raining  blows  upon  him.  Hubert  turned 
and  ran,  with  Felix  after  him,  sobbing  and  waving  his  fists. 
A  teacher  came  up,  parting  the  quickly  gathered  crowd,  and 
caught  Felix  by  the  shoulder. 

"  You  naughty  boy !  Go  and  wash  your  face !  "  she  com 
manded. 

Felix,  ashamed  and  alarmed,  hurried  off.  He  had,  he 
supposed,  done  something  dreadful.  ...  He  was  greatly 
surprised  when,  at  afternoon  recess,  he  was  treated  by  the 
Dther  boys  with  marked  deference,  and  invited  to  join  a 
jame  of  "  dare-base." 

He  did  not  understand  what  had  made  the  difference. 
But  he  began  to  like  school  a  little. 


42  Moon-Calf 

He  also  began  to  look  with  curiosity,  and  not  merely  with 
timidity,  at  the  town  through  which  he  passed  on  his  way 
to  school.  There  were  places  where  he  learned  to  loiter 
and  look  —  in  front  of  the  stationery  store  window,  with 
its  display  of  Diamond  Dick  and  Nick  Carter  "  novels,"  on 
the  covers  of  which  every  week  some  new  and  exciting 
episode  was  pictured  ( —  it  was  wrong,  Felix  knew,  to  read 
these  "  novels,"  but  no  one  had  said  it  was  wrong  to  look 
at  them)  ;  in  front  of  the  hardware  store,  with  its  pocket- 
knives  and  other  shining  tools  which  Felix  had  no  realistic 
desire  to  use,  but  loved  for  their  brightness  and  sharpness ; 
and  at  the  door  of  the  blacksmith  shop,  the  most  exciting 
place  of  all,  with  its  sizzling  of  red-hot  horseshoes  dropped 
in  water,  its  pungent  smell  of  seared  hoofs,  its  roaring 
bellows-blown  fire,  and  the  music  of  hammer  on  anvil. 
Then  there  was  the  "  park,"  the  square  about  which  the 
stores  were  ranged.  In  the  spring  the  boys  played  marbles 
and  tops  there,  and  at  noon  groups  of  idlers  hung  about  talk 
ing  and  telling  stories,  with  a  fringe  of  boys  for  audience. 
There  was  a  band-stand,  where  the  band  played  on  the 
Fourth  of  July.  It  had  an  upper  story,  open  like  the  lower 
on  all  sides  except  for  a  little  wall  only  a  few  feet  high;  no 
stair  or  ladder  led  up  to  it,  and  Felix  wondered  what  it  was 
for  and  if  there  was  anything  up  there.  His  fancy  sup 
plied  an  answer.  He  used  to  pretend  to  himself  that  if 
he  climbed  up  there  he  would  find  huge  stacks  of  old 
"  novels  "  like  those  that  hung  in  the  window  of  Spotwood's 
stationery  store.  (It  was  wrong  to  read  them,  but  not 
wrong  to  pretend  to  read  them.)  He  would  climb  up  there 
some  Saturday,  he  pretended  to  himself,  and  lie  there  un 
seen,  luxuriating  in  this  forbidden  treasure-trove.  .  .  . 

It  was  in  the  summer  after  his  second  year  of  school  that 
Felix  discovered  the  public  library.  Across  the  street  from 
the  Fays  lived  a  family  whose  eldest  daughter  had  gone  to 
'*  the  city,"  that  is,  to  Vicklcy,  to  work,  and  she  was  spending 
her  vacation  with  her  folks  back  in  Maple.  She  was  bored 
and  hot,  and  she  wanted  a  book  to  read,  but  she  did  not 


First  Flights  43 

want  to  dress  up  and  go  down  to  the  public  library.  As  she 
was  lolling  on  the  front  porch  with  a  copy  of  the  Maple 
Adage  for  a  fan,  she  saw  Felix  playing  in  his  front  yard, 
and  called  him  across.  "  Do  you  want  to  run  an  errand  for 
me?"  she  asked,  and  scratched  off  a  note  to  the  librarian 
asking  for  "some  interesting  book  of  fiction  —  not  too 
heavy."  Felix  went  where  he  was  directed,  to  a  place  over 
the  candy-store,  and  was  given  the  book.  He  ventured  to 
stay  and  look  —  rather  timidly,  for  he  did  not  know  that 
this  was  not  a  store  where  things  were  sold  —  at  the  books 
and  magazines  lying  on  a  large  table  at  the  side  of  the  room. 
No  one  ordered  him  away,  or  humiliated  him  by  asking  if  he 
wanted  to  buy  something,  so  he  determined  secretly  to  come 
to  this  place  again. 

He  did.  It  was  some  time  before  his  nervousness  and 
sense  of  trespass  wore  off,  as  he  came  to  observe  that  others 
were  doing  the  same  thing  as  himself ;  to  forget  his  embar 
rassment,  he  immersed  himself  as  quickly  as  possible  in  the 
stories  and  pictures  he  found  in  the  magazines  and  books 
on  the  table.  .  .  .  He  experienced  more  than  once,  in  those 
first  few  weeks,  the  imaginary  joys  of  the  treasure-trove  he 
had  pictured  in  the  top  of  the  band-stand,  as  he  sprawled 
there  at  the  table  during  the  long  afternoons,  reading  bound 
volumes  of  "  St.  Nicholas." 

In  a  short  time  his  face  became  familiar  to  the  librarian,  a 
strict  but  kindly  old  lady,  and  after  a  while  she  asked  if  he 
did  not  want  to  take  some  books  home.  "  Can  I  ? "  he 
asked.  She  wanted  to  know  his  name,  who  his  father  was, 
and  where  he  lived ;  then  she  gave  him  a  blank  to  have  his 
father  and  some  neighbour  sign.  He  took  it  home  with 
diffidence,  uncertain  how  his  adventure  would  be  received. 
But  it  was  regarded  with  approval,  and  so  he  went  back  to 
the  library,  where  he  looked  with  new  curiosity,  and  for  the 
first  time  boldly,  at  the  shelves  of  books  behind  the  desk 
where  the  grey-haired  lady  sat. 

"  And  now  what  do  you  want  ?  "  she  asked,  beaming  upon 
lim. 


44  Moon-Calf 

Felix  did  not  know.  What  he  really  wanted  was  to 
wander  among  those  shelves  of  books,  and  handle  and  look 
at  them  freely  and  find  out  for  himself  what  he  wanted. 
But  he  did  not  dare  say  that.  No  one,  he  knew,  ever  went 
behind  that  desk  except  the  grey-haired  lady  herself,  and 
sometimes  a  still  more  aged  person,  a  man  whom  Felix 
recognized  as  the  preacher  who  had  once  made  a  little  speech 
at  the  school. 

"  Shall  I  pick  out  something  for  you?  "  asked  the  librarian. 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  Felix  shyly,  meaning,  "  if  you  please, 
thank  you !  " 

"  Here,"  said  the  librarian  triumphantly,  and  handed  him 
a  much-worn  book,  labelled  on  the  cover  "  Elsie  Dinsmore." 

Felix  took  the  book  home  and  read  it  faithfully,  but  he 
was  glad  when  he  had  finished  it.  However,  when  he  came 
back  the  next  week,  he  was  given  the  next  succeeding  one 
of  what  appeared  to  be,  as  the  weeks  went  by,  an  endless 
series  of  volumes  which  grew  more  and  more  difficult  to 
read.  .  .  .  Presently  the  continuity  of  the  series  was  broken, 
the  volume  which  Felix  was  presumed  to  want  being  "  out." 
So  Felix  was  changed  over  to  "  Frank  on  a  Gunboat,"  and 
then  to  the  Oliver  Optic  series.  .  .  .  Felix  read  the  books 
as  they  were  given  to  him,  except  that  he  never  returned  to 
follow  the  fortunes  of  the  admirable  Elsie;  but  the  early 
magic  of  the  adventure  of  reading  was  gone. 

Then  one  day  he  picked  up  on  the  counter  a  book  whose 
pictures  interested  him ;  he  clung  to  it,  and  was  reluctant  to 
take  the  Oliver  Optic  book  which  the  librarian  had  ready  for 
him.  The  librarian  glanced  at  the  book,  smiled,  and  said, 
"You  don't  want  that  book  —  it's  too  old  for  you."  A 
wicked  idea  came  into  Felix's  head,  and  swallowing  hard, 
he  asked,  **  Could  I  take  it  for — for  my  mother?" 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  the  librarian,  and  gave  him  both 
books.  After  that,  Felix  carried  home  two  books  each 
time,  one  of  some  standard  series  for  children,  and  one 
wildly  experimental  choice.  The  strangest  of  these  choices 
was  a  volume  of  Burton's  "  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  and 


First  Flights  45 

the  most  fascinating  of  them  "  Les  Miserables."  He  read 
the  latter  book  with  intense  interest  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  could  not  understand  very  much  of  it ;  what  he  did  under 
stand  was  the  sublime  detective-story  of  Javert  and  Jean 
Valjean;  but  the  parts  which  he  did  not  understand  never 
theless  impressed  him,  and  he  felt  in  turning  over  its  pages 
that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  something  strangely  magnifi 
cent.  .  .  .  The  memory  of  this  book  haunted  him  for  a  long 
time,  and  its  name  (pronounced  according  to  a  fashion  of 
his  own)  stayed  in  his  memory.  He  had  heard  of  a  man 
who  read  a  book  by  Charles  Dickens  once  a  year ;  Felix  had 
tried  to  read  Dickens,  but  he  had  found  its  text  as  queerly 
silly  as  the  drawings  by  Cruikshank  which  embellished  it. 
He  did  not  see  how  anybody  could  read  such  things  once, 
let  alone  doing  it  over  and  over.  But  he  remembered  the 
idea;  there  was  something  fine  and  distinguished  about  it; 
and  he  said  to  himself,  "/  will  read  Less  Miser'bles  again 
every  year !  " 


Across  the  street  from  Felix  that  summer  lived  five  boys, 
who  always  played  together.  Sometimes  Felix  played  with 
them.  Back  of  the  Burgess  boys'  place  there  was  a  gulley 
with  a  stream  running  through  it,  where  they  sailed  boats 
and  had  sham  battles  with  wooden  fleets  carved  from  cigar- 
box  lids.  They  made  bows  and  arrows,  and  shot  at  targets. 
They  waded  in  the  stream  and  caught  crawfish.  They  lay 
in  the  sun  and  talked.  Also  there  was  a  big  woodshed  on 
the  Burgess  place,  where  they  had  fixed  up  a  trapeze. 
Felix  entered  into  these  sports  with  zest  if  not  with  skill; 
but  it  was  not  until  Peter,  the  oldest  Burgess  boy,  developed 
a  fancy  for  reading,  and  would  stay  in  the  cool  woodshed 
and  pore  over  a  book  while  the  others  went  out  to  the  gulley, 
that  he  began  to  find  companionship.  He  would  bring  his 
book  over  to  the  woodshed  and  read,  too,  and  discuss  the 
merits  of  the  various  books  they  had  both  read.  Their 
common  interest  in  books  was  a  bond  between  them  which 


46  Moon-Calf 

gave  Felix  a  warm  glow  whenever  he  was  with  his  friend, 
and  which  made  Peter  more  patient  of  Felix's  clumsiness 
in  outdoor  play.  Peter  was  a  year  older  than  Felix,  and 
ordinarily  the  most  active  of  all  the  boys.  He  carefully 
taught  Felix  how  to  perform  the  most  difficult  feats  in  leap 
frog  and  mumblety-peg  and  even  trapeze-acting,  but  he  could 
not  succeed  in  getting  him  not  to  be  afraid  of  a  ball  when  it 
was  thrown  at  him.  He  discovered  Felix's  special  ability 
in  puzzles  and  guessing-contests,  and  encouraged  him  in 
everything  with  praise.  At  last  he  insisted  on  taking  Felix 
to  the  swimming-hole,  whither  they  were  all  forbidden  by 
their  mothers  to  go,  but  to  which  they  sneaked  away  two  or 
three  times  a  week.  Felix  had  never  accompanied  them, 
because  his  mother  had  said  he  must  not.  But  Peter  said 
he  would  teach  Felix  to  swim,  and  Felix  screwed  up  his 
courage  to  the  point  of  assenting. 

But  before  the  time  set,  the  family  decided  to  move  —  to 
a  smaller  and  cheaper  house  —  and  Felix  never  went.  The 
new  house  was  on  the  other  side  of  town,  and  Felix,  fearful 
of  the  dangers  of  disobedience,  did  not  go  back  for  his 
swimming-lesson.  His  half-formed  friendship  with  Peter 
dropped,  and  when  they  saw  each  other  again  at  school  in 
the  fall,  it  was  as  casual  acquaintances.  Peter  had  other 
chums,  and  Felix  was  immersed  again  in  the  day-dreams 
which  books  unfolded  for  him.  He  was  rather  contemptu 
ous  now  of  Peter's  literary  tastes,  which  had  never  risen 
higher  than  boy's  adventure  stories.  Felix  was  reading  the 
romances  of  Alexander  Dumas. 

Jim  had  not  gone  back  to  school  that  year.  He  was  work 
ing  in  a  store  and  getting  enough  money  to  dress  decently 
on,  and  he  preferred  to  keep  on  working.  "  I'd  rather  be 
ignorant,"  he  declared  passionately  to  his  mother,  "  than  al 
ways  wear  patched  underclothes." — "  Well,"  his  father  com 
mented  philosophically,  "  Jim  always  was  a  dude !  "  That 
fall  Mr.  Fay  quarrelled  with  the  foreman  at  the  woollen- 
mills  and  lost  his  job  there.  He  went  to  work  hauling  rock 
for  the  new  road  between  Maple  and  Harden,  but  the  wages 


First  Flights  47 

were  not  so  good.  Ann  gladly  took  the  fact  that  her 
wages  were  needed,  as  an  excuse  to  quit  school  and  go  to 
work  in  Miss  Tanner's  millinery  store.  Even  then  she  was 
bitterly  discontented  with  life  in  Maple  — "  a  one-horse 
town,"  she  called  it.  Ed  was  working  now  as  a  house 
painter.  He  had  hoped  to  become  an  artist,  but  the  nearest 
thing  to  art  in  Maple  was  sign-painting,  and  there  was  not 
enough  of  that  to  make  a  living  by. 

Mr.  Fay  took  these  incidents  lightly,  on  the  theory  that 
the  family  misfortunes  were  only  temporary.  Mrs.  Fay 
grieved,  and  resolved  fiercely  to  herself  that  Felix  should 
finish  his  education  —  whatever  happened. 

Felix  submitted  to  the  routine  of  school,  and  got  good 
"  marks,"  but  his  real  life  was  elsewhere.  Every  afternoon 
as  school  was  let  out,  he  would  go  to  the  public  library. 
He  would  come  home  at  dusk,  his  head  with  its  cluster  of 
yellow  curls  bent  over  a  book  which  he  read  as  he  walked, 
another  volume  held  tightly  under  his  arm. 

Of  his  odd  appearance  with  his  belated  curls,  Felix  was 
utterly  unconscious.  He  might  have  worn  them  for  ever 
without  protest.  But  his  brothers  criticized,  his  sister 
mocked,  and  at  last  when  he  was  eight  years  old,  and  had 
been  chosen  to  "  speak  a  piece  "  at  a  school  entertainment, 
his  father  said  that  the  curls  must  go.  The  piece  was 
"  Sheridan's  Ride,"  and  his  father  said  that  it  would  look 
silly  for  a  boy  who  looked  more  like  a  girl  than  a  boy  to 
speak  it.  His  mother  had  carefully  rehearsed  Felix  in  the 
speaking  of  his  piece,  and  she  thought  that  the  curls  made 
the  whole  effect  much  nicer.  She  would  not  have  his  hair 
cut,  she  said. 

But  Mr.  Fay  defied  his  wife's  injunction  and  took  Felix 
over  to  Tom  Jenkins'  barber-shop.  Old  Tom  Jenkins 
snipped  off  the  curls,  and  Mr.  Fay  remarked  that  Felix 
looked  something  like  a  boy  at  last.  But  he  put  the  severed 
curls  carefully  in  his  pocket. 

When  Felix  came  home  and  exhibited  his  shorn  head,  his 
mother  cried.  His  father  took  the  curls  from  his  pocket  and 


48  Moon-Calf 

gave  them  to  her.     She  put  them  away  in  a  little  box  with 
the  baby-dresses  of  her  dead  child. 

That  night  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  sister  came  and 
kissed  him  as  he  slept,  and  said  good-bye  to  him.  He  did 
not  know  whether  it  was  a  dream  or  not.  But  the  next  day 
he  remembered  it  when  they  told  him  that  Ann  had  gone  on 
a  visit  to  some  friends  in  Vickley.  But  his  mother  cried  a 
good  deal,  and  Felix  knew  that  Ann  had  run  away  at  last. 
She  wrote  a  letter  home  a  month  later,  saying  that  she  had 
gone  to  Chicago,  and  had  a  job  in  an  amusement  park. 
Felix  was  glad  she  had  gone,  and  he  hoped  she  was  happy. 
She  was  a  wild  thing,  it  seemed  to  him,  who  must  fly  away 
into  strange  places.  His  imagination  followed  her  a  little 
enviously  at  first.  An  "  amusement-park  " —  what  could 
that  be  like?  But  soon,  among  his  books,  he  thought  no 
more  about  her,  except  at  Christmas  time,  when  she  sent 
him  a  pair  of  skates.  He  was  much  impressed,  but  he  had 
a  feeling  that  he  would  never  use  them.  He  wished  it  had 
been  a  book  instead. 


V  "  What  is  known  as  Egotism 


FELIX'S  fondness  for  books  was  known  all  over  town. 
And  thereby  occurred  a  strange  experience.  .  .  . 
One  summer  afternoon,  when  Felix  was  ten  years 
old,  as  he  started  from  home  to  go  to  the  library  he  turned 
back  impatiently  at  the  gate,  thinking  that  he  heard  his 
mother  calling  to  him  from  the  house.  He  was  mistaken, 
but  as  he  looked  back  he  noticed,  above  the  low  roof  of  the 
summer-kitchen  that  jutted  out  from  the  side  of  the  house, 
a  thin  curl  of  smoke  that  seemed  to  be  trickling  between  the 
shingles.  The  house  must  be  on  fire,  he  thought,  and  he 
ran  back  excitedly  to  give  the  alarm. 

His  father,  who  was  not  working  that  summer,  came  and 
saw  the  smoke,  and  together  they  ran  and  fetched  a  ladder 
from  the  barn.  His  mother  brought  a  big  pail,  and  Felix 
pumped  it  full  of  water  at  the  cistern.  His  mother  stood 
on  the  ladder  and  handed  the  water  up  to  his  father,  who 
dashed  it  on  the  roof,  while  Felix  refilled  the  pail  at  the 
cistern. 

The  neighbours  across  the  street  saw  them,  and  ran  over, 
and  somebody  went  for  the  fire  department.  The  Cederwall 
boys  joined  Mr.  Fay  on  the  roof,  and  some  one  took  Mrs. 
Fay's  place  on  the  ladder.  She  went  inside  and  directed 
the  removal  of  the  household  goods  from  the  lower  rooms. 
All  the  upstairs  was  now  full  of  smoke,  and  presently 
flames  could  be  seen  through  the  windows.  Some  one 
broke  a  window,  and  pail  after  pail  of  water  was  poured 
in.  All  this  time  Felix  worked  furiously  at  the  cistern, 
filling  one  pail  after  another.  Then  there  was  a  clanging 
of  bells,  and  the  whole  Maple  fire-brigade  arrived.  At  that 
moment  the  metal  pin  which  held  the  pump-handle  in  place 

49 


5O  Moon-Calf 

worked  loose  and  came  out,  and  the  handle  flew  up,  hitting 
Felix  a  dizzy  blow  in  the  nose.  As  there  was  no  further 
need  of  his  services  now,  he  retired  to  a  distance,  and 
standing  amidst  the  hastily  removed  tables  and  beds  at  the 
other  end  of  the  yard,  watched  the  firemen  put  out  the  file. 
All  was  over  in  half  an  hour. 

The  water-soaked  house  was  uninhabitable,  and  the  Fays 
were  taken  in  by  the  Farrells,  who  lived  across  the  street. 
Felix  helped  tell  the  story  of  the  fire  to  all  comers,  and 
after  supper  went  down  town  with  the  youngest  Farrell 
boy  to  give  a  first-hand  account  to  any  new  audiences  that 
might  demand  it.  But  in  the  square  they  saw  Tom  Jenkins, 
the  barber,  the  centre  of  an  interested  group,  and  they 
caught  the  phrase,  "  the  fire,"  so  they  edged  in  to  hear  what 
he  was  saying.  Yes,  he  was  telling  the  story  of  the  fire. 

He  had  not  been  there,  and  perhaps  for  that  reason  was 
the  better  able  to  make  a  dramatic  narrative  out  of  the 
event.  Felix  listened  in  something  between  annoyance  and 
admiration  from  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  and  was  about 
to  step  up  and  correct  the  story-teller  on  one  point —  (the 
Fay  furniture  had  not  been  "totally  destroyed") — when 
he  heard  his  own  name  spoken.  He  stopped  where  he  was, 
abashed.  He  instantly  thought  that  some  tribute  was  go 
ing  to  be  paid  to  his  devoted  services  at  the  pump  before 
the  fire-department  came.  But  that  was  not  the  story  that 
Tom  Jenkins  had  to  tell. 

"  Felix,  the  boy's  name  is,"  he  was  saying.  "  You've  all 
seen  him  going  through  the  streets  here  with  his  nose  in  a 
book,  not  seeing  a  thing.  You  have  to  get  out  of  his  way  to 
keep  from  running  into  him.  If  there  was  an  earthquake, 
he'd  never  know  it.  The  only  thing  he'd  notice  would  be 
that  the  books  at  the  library  were  kind  of  mixed  up.  If 
there  was  a  flood,  he'd  probably  get  a-straddle  of  a  hen-coop 
and  paddle  down  to  the  library  just  the  same.  It's  what 
I've  told  you  many  a  time  about  the  dominant  passion ! 
Well,  this  little  shaver  was  sitting  out  on  the  front  steps 
finishing  a  book  when  the  fire  broke  out.  .  .  ." 


"What  Is  Known  as  Egotism"       51 

("I  was  not!"  thought  Felix.) 

*'.  .  .  Did  he  notice  it?  Not  him!  His  mother  weeping 
and  wringing  her  hands,  his  father  up  there  on  the  roof 
swearing  like  a  trooper  and  calling  for  more  water,  the 
flames  roaring  and  the  sparks  falling  all  about  him  —  and 
he  sat  there  as  quiet  as  a  mouse,  until  he'd  finished  his  book. 
Then  he  started  to  go  into  the  house  to  get  another  one. 
Just  like  the  way  Tod  Cheepy  smokes  cigarettes,  lighting 
one  from  the  butt  of  another,  that's  the  way  he  reads  books. 

"  As  I  say,  he  started  into  the  house.  One  of  the  Cedar- 
wall  boys  saw  him,  Pete  Cedarwall  it  was.  '  Hey  you ! ' 
he  says,  *  you  can't  go  in  there.  The  house  is  on  fire ! ' — 
'Oh,'  he  says,  surprised  — '  Is  it?  I  didn't  know.'  And 
he  hung  around  there,  waiting  for  the  fire  to  go  out,  you  see, 
so  he  could  go  in  and  get  that  book.  But  the  doggone  fire 
wouldn't  go  out  —  looked  as  though  it  was  going  to  burn 
the  whole  blame  house  right  down  to  the  ground.  The  kid 
must  have  figured  that  out,  because  pretty  soon  he  wasn't 
there.  Nobody'd  noticed  where  he  went,  but  pretty  soon  his 
mother  came  up  calling  out,  '  Where's  Felix  ?  Where's 
my  boy?'  And  nobody  could  tell  her,  and  then  she  said, 
'  Oh  my  God  !  He's  in  the  house  ! ' —  No,  they  said,  he  was 
here  just  a  minute  ago.  '  He's  gone  in  the  house,'  she 
said,  '  to  rescue  his  books.  Oh,  won't  somebody  go  in  and 
save  him  ?  '  So  Pete  Cedarwall  —  he  was  the  only  one  who 
believed  that  the  kid  might  really  be  in  the  house  —  Pete 
wet  a  handkerchief  and  tied  it  around  his  mouth  and  nose, 
and  went  in.  The  house  was  full  of  smoke.  Nobody  down 
stairs.  The  stairs  was  beginning  to  burn,  but  he  went  up 
—  and  there  he  found  him,  with  a  big  armful  of  books. 
"  Yes,  sir,  rescuing  his  precious  books !  '  Come  outa 
that ! '  says  Pete.  *  Just  a  minute,'  says  Felix,  *  I  think 
there's  another  one/  And  by  God,  Pete  just  had  to  pick 
him  up,  books  and  all,  and  carry  him  downstairs.  And  when 
they  got  outside  his  mother  started  to  cry  over  him,  but  he 
paid  no  attention,  he  just  sat  down  and  counted  his  books  — • 
to  make  sure  that  they  were  all  there.  '  See  here,'  says 


52  Moon-Calf 

Pete,  '  now  you're  out,  you  stay  out !  Understand  ?  Don't 
you  go  back  in  that  house  on  no  consideration.  I've  done 
all  the  rescuing  I  feel  like  today.'  And  the  kid  says,  '  It's 
all  right,'  he  says,  '  the  one  I  was  looking  for  is  here 
after  all.  I  don't  need  to  go  back.' 

'*  And  by  the  Lord  Harry,  I  believe  if  he  hadn't  had  that 
there  book  he  was  looking  for,  he'd  have  gone  back  to  get  it  in 
spite  of  hell  and  all !  " 

There  was  an  appreciative  murmur,  mingled  with  loud 
laughter,  from  the  crowd,  waking  Felix  from  the  spell  which 
this  story  had  laid  upon  him.  The  story-teller  began  again, 
repeating  his  climax.  "  Yes  sir,  he'd  have  gone  right  in  to 
that  burning  house  — " 

Felix  walked  away  from  the  crowd,  suddenly  flushed 
with  deep  anger  and  shame.  He  realized  that  the  crowd 
was  laughing  at  him  for  being  a  fool.  He  wanted  to  go 
back  and  shout  at  them  that  it  was  not  true,  that  it  was  all 
a  lie.  But  he  knew  these  people  would  not  believe  him. 
They  believed  the  story.  Of  course  they  did.  Felix,  while 
he  listened,  had  almost  believed  it  himself.  .  .  . 

The  little  Farrell  boy  ran  after  him ;  he  had  stayed  to  hear 
the  end  of  the  story  —  the  imaginative  barber  had  finally 
finished  it  off  with  a  new  episode,  in  which  Felix  had  strug 
gled  with  his  rescuer  on  being  brought  out  of  the  house, 
trying  to  go  back  again  after  the  missing  book.  This  effort 
to  paint  the  lily  had  aroused  doubts  in  the  hitherto  credulous 
young  Farrell.  *'  He  says  you  tried  to  go  back  again,  Felix ! 
Is  that  so,  Felix?  I  didn't  see  you  try  to  go  back  again." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about?  "  demanded  Felix  angrily. 
"  You  know  perfectly  well  that  the  whole  thing's  a  lie !  " 

"  Well,  I  didn't  see  you  try  to  go  back  again  the  second 
time,"  conceded  the  boy. 

"  You  didn't  see  me  go  in  the  first  time  either,  did  you  ? 
You  didn't  see  Pete  Cedarwall  dragging  me  out,  did  you  ?  " 

The  boy  made  a  reluctant  adjustment  of  the  facts  to  the 
story.  "Well,"  he  said,  "I  saw  you  right  afterwards!" 

The  boy  had  been  there  all  the  time.     And  yet  he  believed 


"  What  Is  Known  as  Egotism  "       53 

Tom  Jenkins'  story.  Felix  turned  and  walked  away  in  dis 
gust.  When  the  boy  started  to  follow  him,  he  shouted, 
*'  Go  away !  You're  a  little  idiot !  Don't  you  dare  tag 
after  me,  or  I'll  slap  your  face."  ...  On  the  way  home, 
another  boy  stopped  him  to  ask  about  the  alleged  rescue,  and 
Felix  bitterly  refused  to  talk  to  him.  But  when  in  front  of 
the  Farrell  place  one  of  the  neighbours  saw  him  and  said, 
in  a  tone  that  seemed  to  show  admiration  of  Felix's  im 
aginary  exploit,  "  Well  Felix,  you  got  your  books  anyhow, 
didn't  you  ?  " —  Felix  only  hung  his  head  and  muttered  some 
thing  unintelligible,  and  then  ran  into  the  house. 

He  did  not  say  anything  about  the  story  to  his  parents, 
and  was  relieved  that  they  did  not  speak  of  it.  He  hoped 
they  had  not  heard  it,  for  he  was  afraid  his  father  would 
guy  him  about  it.  ...  He  was  curiously  distressed  and  yet 
elated,  to  be  the  subject  of  so  much  public  comment.  There 
was  intoxication  as  well  as  pain  in  the  thought  of  this  story 
about  him  going  from  mouth  to  mouth.  And  that  night  in 
bed  Felix  lay  awake  a  long  time  and  rehearsed  the  story  to 
himself,  improving  a  little  on  Tom  Jenkins'  version.  It 
fascinated  him.  He  knew  how  absurd,  as  well  as  untrue, 
the  story  was.  He  did  not  own  a  book  that  he  would  have 
lifted  a  finger  to  save.  The  books  he  owned  had  long  since 
been  read  and  re-read,  gutted  of  their  contents  and  thrown 
aside.  The  only  books  for  which  he  really  cared  at  all  were 
newly-borrowed  and  still  unread  or  half-read,  books  from 
the  library.  And  as  for  risking  his  life  to  save  a  library 
book  !  —  that  was  preposterous.  But  these  considerations 
of  fact  were  swamped  by  the  tide  of  emotional  truth  in  the 
story.  He  felt  queerly  proud  of  it,  just  as  though  it  really 
had  been  true.  It  represented,  perhaps,  a  thing  he  might 
have  done.  .  .  . 

He  imagined  the  scene.  Himself,  blinded  by  smoke,  grop 
ing  on  the  shelf  for  his  beloved  books,  unheeding  the  danger, 
until  seized  by  the  strong  arm  of  Pete  Cedarwall.  He  tasted 
the  smoke  in  his  throat,  felt  it  in  his  eyes,  knew  the  feel  of 
the  floor  as  he  stumbled  and  fell  and  rose  again,  the  weight 


56  Moon-Calf 

wondering  how  to  go  on,  what  to  say  next.  Then  one  day 
his  teacher  kept  him  after  school  because  he  had  not  known 
his  lesson,  and  gently  rebuked  him.  "  You  have  been  such 
a  good  scholar,  Felix,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  know  what  is 
getting  over  you.  What  is  it  you  are  always  thinking  about 
when  you  should  be  studying?  Tell  me." 

Felix  melted  under  her  kind  glance,  and  mumbled, 
"  Stories." 

"Stories?  The  stories  you  read?  What  are  they?" 
She  suspected  the  hypnotic  influence  of  Nick  Carter. 

"  No,"  said  Felix,  beginning  to  be  sorry  that  he  had  told 
her. 

"  What  is  it,  then  ? "  She  sat  down  in  the  seat  beside 
him,  and  put  her  arm  about  his  shoulders.  *'  Tell  me, 
dear." 

"  Stories  I  want  to  write,"  whispered  Felix,  ashamed  and 
fearful,  but  compelled  by  her  kindness  to  confess. 

"  Oh,"  she  said.  "  Stories  you  want  to  write.  So  you 
want  to  write  stories.  That  is  nice.  What  do  you  want  to 
write  about  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Felix  gloomily.  "That's  the 
trouble.  I  just  want  to  write." 

"  Oh,  I  see.  You  want  to  write  stories,  but  you  don't 
know  what  to  write  about.  Well,  let's  see.  Why  don't 
you  write  about  a  little  boy  who  went  to  school  and — " 

"  I  don't  want  to  write  about  little  boys,"  said  Felix  un 
comfortably. 

"  Would  you  like  to  write  about  history  ?  There  are  lots 
of  interesting  things  in  history  to  write  about." 

"  I  —  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Felix. 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you.  You  just  look  at  some  story-books, 
and  see  if  you  can't  find  something  to  write  about  in  them. 
And  you  can  see  from  the  books  how  people  write  stories, 
too;  and  maybe  that  will  make  it  easier  for  you.  And 
when  you  find  what  you  want  to  write  about,  you  start  in, 
and  write  a  fine  story.  And  when  you  get  it  finished,  you 
will  bring  it  to  me  and  let  me  read  it.  Won't  you?  And 


'What  Is  Known  as  Egotism"       57 

that  will  be  all  right  —  only  you  must  do  it  out  of  school 
hours.  You  mustn't  neglect  your  lessons,  you  know.  I 
think  you  will  write  a  fine  story,  and  I  know  you  will  be 
my  nicest  scholar  again."  She  rose.  "  Is  that  a  bargain?  " 
"  Yes'm,"  said  Felix,  and  blushing  took  the  hand  which 
she  held  out  to  him. 


He  had  always  admired  Miss  Croly,  the  teacher,  but  now 
he  felt  almost  worshipful  of  her.  He  went  home  determined 
to  have  all  his  lessons  for  ever  afterward,  and  to  write  a 
story  she  would  be  proud  of.  He  began  to  look  through 
books  for  something  to  write  about.  He  did  not  find  any 
thing,  but  he  did  begin  to  notice  how  they  were  written. 
He  realized  for  the  first  time  that  the  books  which  he  read 
were  very  long.  His  "  piece  "  had  been  very  insignificant  in 
comparison  to  them.  He  must  write  a  long  story  —  a  book. 
It  would  be  hard  to  do  —  but  nothing  less,  he  felt,  would 
justify  Miss  Croly's  confidence  in  him.  He  examined  care 
fully  a  novel  by  Charles  Garvice  which  he  had  just  been 
reading.  It  had  twenty  chapters.  Well,  that  did  not  seem 
so  terribly  long,  after  all.  He  would  have  twenty  chapters 
in  his  book.  How  many  people  should  he  have  in  it?  He 
began  to  count  the  characters  in  the  Garvice  novel,  setting 
down  their  names.  He  grew  discouraged  when  he  found 
that  the  list  mounted  up  to  forty  before  he  was  half  way 
through  the  book.  He  thought  this  over,  and  decided  that 
it  was  not  really  necessary  to  have  so  many  people.  He 
would  limit  himself  to  thirty  —  fifteen  men  and  fifteen 
women.  He  began  choosing  names  for  these  characters, 
looking  in  various  books  and  in  the  "  list  of  Christian 
names  "  in  the  back  of  the  big  dictionary  at  school.  He 
did  not  know  what  he  would  do  with  all  these  characters, 
but  it  was  fun  to  choose  names  for  them.  *'  Roxana  Sav 
age.  Karl  Koenig.  Lieutenant  George  Maynard.  Marie 
Despard.  The  Due  de  Rossignac.  Celia  Blythe.  .  .  ." 
But  what  to  do  with  them?  An  idea  came  to  Felix.  He 


56  Moon-Calf 

wondering  how  to  go  on,  what  to  say  next.  Then  one  day 
his  teacher  kept  him  after  school  because  he  had  not  known 
his  lesson,  and  gently  rebuked  him.  "  You  have  been  such 
a  good  scholar,  Felix,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  know  what  is 
getting  over  you.  What  is  it  you  are  always  thinking  about 
when  you  should  be  studying?  Tell  me." 

Felix  melted  under  her  kind  glance,  and  mumbled, 
"  Stories." 

"Stories?  The  stories  you  read?  What  are  they?" 
She  suspected  the  hypnotic  influence  of  Nick  Carter. 

"  No,"  said  Felix,  beginning  to  be  sorry  that  he  had  told 
her. 

"  What  is  it,  then  ?  "  She  sat  down  in  the  seat  beside 
him,  and  put  her  arm  about  his  shoulders.  "  Tell  me, 
dear." 

"  Stories  I  want  to  write,"  whispered  Felix,  ashamed  and 
fearful,  but  compelled  by  her  kindness  to  confess. 

"  Oh,"  she  said.  "  Stories  you  want  to  write.  So  you 
want  to  write  stories.  That  is  nice.  What  do  you  want  to 
write  about  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Felix  gloomily.  "  That's  the 
trouble.  I  just  want  to  write." 

**  Oh,  I  see.  You  want  to  write  stories,  but  you  don't 
know  what  to  write  about.  Well,  let's  see.  Why  don't 
you  write  about  a  little  boy  who  went  to  school  and — " 

"  I  don't  want  to  write  about  little  boys,"  said  Felix  un 
comfortably. 

'*  Would  you  like  to  write  about  history  ?  There  are  lots 
of  interesting  things  in  history  to  write  about." 

"  I  —  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Felix. 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you.  You  just  look  at  some  story-books, 
and  see  if  you  can't  find  something  to  write  about  in  them. 
And  you  can  see  from  the  books  how  people  write  stories, 
too;  and  maybe  that  will  make  it  easier  for  you.  And 
when  you  find  what  you  want  to  write  about,  you  start  in, 
and  write  a  fine  story.  And  when  you  get  it  finished,  you 
will  bring  it  to  me  and  let  me  read  it.  Won't  you?  An 


"  What  Is  Known  as  Egotism  "       57 

that  will  be  all  right  —  only  you  must  do  it  out  of  school 
hours.  You  mustn't  neglect  your  lessons,  you  know.  I 
think  you  will  write  a  fine  story,  and  I  know  you  will  be 
my  nicest  scholar  again."  She  rose.  "  Is  that  a  bargain?  " 
"  Yes'm,"  said  Felix,  and  blushing  took  the  hand  which 
she  held  out  to  him. 


He  had  always  admired  Miss  Croly,  the  teacher,  but  now 
he  felt  almost  worshipful  of  her.  He  went  home  determined 
to  have  all  his  lessons  for  ever  afterward,  and  to  write  a 
story  she  would  be  proud  of.  He  began  to  look  through 
books  for  something  to  write  about.  He  did  not  find  any 
thing,  but  he  did  begin  to  notice  how  they  were  written. 
He  realized  for  the  first  time  that  the  books  which  he  read 
were  very  long.  His  "  piece  "  had  been  very  insignificant  in 
comparison  to  them.  He  must  write  a  long  story  —  a  book. 
It  would  be  hard  to  do  —  but  nothing  less,  he  felt,  would 
justify  Miss  Croly's  confidence  in  him.  He  examined  care 
fully  a  novel  by  Charles  Garvice  which  he  had  just  been 
reading.  It  had  twenty  chapters.  Well,  that  did  not  seem 
so  terribly  long,  after  all.  He  would  have  twenty  chapters 
in  his  book.  How  many  people  should  he  have  in  it?  He 
began  to  count  the  characters  in  the  Garvice  novel,  setting 
down  their  names.  He  grew  discouraged  when  he  found 
that  the  list  mounted  up  to  forty  before  he  was  half  way 
through  the  book.  He  thought  this  over,  and  decided  that 
it  was  not  really  necessary  to  have  so  many  people.  He 
would  limit  himself  to  thirty  —  fifteen  men  and  fifteen 
women.  He  began  choosing  names  for  these  characters, 
looking  in  various  books  and  in  the  "  list  of  Christian 
names"  in  the  back  of  the  big  dictionary  at  school.  He 
did  not  know  what  he  would  do  with  all  these  characters, 
but  it  was  fun  to  choose  names  for  them.  *'  Roxana  Sav 
age.  Karl  Koenig.  Lieutenant  George  Maynard.  Marie 
Despard.  The  Due  de  Rossignac.  Celia  Blythe.  .  .  ." 
But  what  to  do  with  them?  An  idea  came  to  Felix.  He 


58  Moon-Calf 

might  send  them  all  up  in  a  balloon,  a  great  balloon  invented 
by  Karl  Koenig,  and  something  would  go  wrong  with  the 
balloon  so  that  they  could  not  come  down,  and  it  would 
drift  over  to  China?  Africa?  a  desert  island?  Yes,  a 
desert  island,  and  then  all  the  rest  of  the  characters  could 
be  savages  and  pirates.  Perhaps  the  hero,  Lieutenant 
George  Maynard,  would  not  be  on  the  lost  balloon,  and  he 
would  have  to  set  out  in  search  of  Celia,  the  heroine.  And 
perhaps  the  inventor,  Karl  Koenig,  was  a  villain,  and  had 
done  it  on  purpose  in  order  to  get  Celia  into  his  power. 
Perhaps  Roxana  Savage  was  in  love  with  him,  and  would 
help  to  foil  his  plot.  And  Marie  Despard  .  .  .  there  were 
great  possibilities  in  a  girl  with  that  name.  But  all  those 
details  could  be  settled  later.  Suddenly  Felix  decided  on 
a  title.  *'  The  Tropic  of  Capricorn."  Feeling  that  he  had 
made  a  start,  he  bought  a  tablet,  the  largest  he  could  find  in 
the  stationery  store,  and  set  down  in  the  middle  of  the 
first  page,  just  as  in  the  books  he  had  been  reading,  "  The 
Tropic  of  Capricorn.  A  Novel.  By  Felix  Fay."  At  the 
top  of  the  second  page  he  wrote  neatly :  "  Chapter  I." 

All  this  was  done  conscientiously  outside  of  school,  ex 
cept  the  search  for  names  in  the  back  of  the  big  dictionary, 
which  he  conducted  at  recess-time.  He  studied  his  lessons 
faithfully,  and  recited  them  to  Miss  Croly's  complete  ap 
proval.  But  that  did  not  take  up  all  his  time.  He  felt  in 
duty  bound  not  to  write  on  his  book  at  school ;  but  he  could 
not  help  dreaming  about  it.  And  since  his  story  was  still 
too  vague  and  indefinite  to  think  about  with  satisfaction, 
he  began  instead  to  dream  of  himself  as  a  story-writer.  In 
his  dreams  he  finished  this  story  and  took  it  to  Miss  Croly, 
and  was  praised  for  it,  and  began  another,  and  finished  that, 
until  in  imagination  he  was  the  author  of  a  dozen  books, 
of  which  he  had  invented  only  the  titles.  This  dream  had 
its  fascination,  and  he  became  very  proud  of  his  imaginary 
works.  He  felt  himself  to  be  a  very  wonderful  person. 

One  day  at  recess,  when  the  other  boys  were  chinning 
themselves  twelve  times  in  succession  on  the  limb  of  an  old 


'What  Is  Known  as  Egotism"       59 

tree  in  the  schoolyard,  and  Felix  could  do  it  only  twice 
without  touching  his  feet  to  the  ground,  he  was  laughed  at. 
He  had  made  himself  indifferent  to  the  occasional  careless 
taunt  at  his  lack  of  physical  prowess,  but  sometimes  it  hurt. 
This  time  the  tears  came  to  his  eyes,  and  he  walked  off, 
saying  to  himself,  "  I  don't  care!  I  don't  care!  I  can  do 
something  they  can't  do.  I  can  write  books." 

That  thought  gave  him  compensation  thenceforth  for  all 
the  hurts  and  humiliations  of  the  schoolyard.  He  ceased 
even  to  try  to  compete  with  the  other  boys,  and  stalked 
apart.  They  could  not  write  books;  and  he  could;  and 
some  day  they  would  realize  it!  ...  He  saw  himself,  in  a 
glowing  vision  of  the  future,  coming  back  to  Maple  as  a 
famous  man,  and  being  pointed  out  on  the  streets.  "  He 
was  born  here,"  they  would  say. 

He  began  to  take  an  interest  in  the  question  of  his  birth 
place.  He  had  had  pointed  out  to  him,  as  the  house  in 
which  he  was  born,  the  great  brown-painted  frame  building 
now  known  as  Blair's  Boarding-House,  where  some  of  the 
mill-hands  lived,  and  which  served  perforce  as  a  hotel 
for  the  infrequent  drummers  who  came  to  Maple.  Felix 
was  vaguely  disappointed  in  it  as  a  birthplace.  He  felt  that 
he  should  have  been  born  in  a  log-cabin,  like  Lincoln. 
There  was  only  one  log-cabin  in  Maple,  and  he  went  out 
of  his  way  several  times  to  look  at  it,  and  stared  curiously 
at  the  barefooted  old  Irishwoman  who  lived  there.  Then 
he  went  back  to  Blair's  Boarding-House,  and  tried  to  recon 
cile  himself  to  it. 

Gradually  he  came  to  yield  it  a  certain  deference.  And 
one  morning,  on  his  eleventh  birthday,  perhaps  unconsci 
ously  by  way  of  acknowledging  it,  he  wrote  his  name  all 
along  the  side  of  the  house  in  large  letters  with  a  piece  of 
chalk. 

4 

That  happened  on  his  way  to  school.  And  that  afternoon 
it  happened  that  the  principal  of  the  school,  a  tall,  rubber- 
heeled  man  who  liked  to  catch  somebody  doing  something 


60  Moon-Calf 

wrong  and  make  an  example  of  him,  visited  the  room.  The 
writing  exercise  was  in  progress.  Felix  had  finished  it 
long  since,  and  sat  dreaming  of  his  future.  He  was  pict 
uring  his  return,  as  a  famous  man,  to  Maple.  The  people 
of  the  town  had  put  a  brass  plate  on  the  corner  of  Blair's 
Boarding-House,  just  as  he  had  read  about  in  books  in 
similar  cases,  proclaiming  the  honour  he  had  done  the  town 
by  being  born  there.  And  as  he  dreamed,  he  unconsciously 
wrote  on  his  tablet,  "  Felix  Fay,  the  Great  Novelist,  was 
born  here,  May  10,  1886." 

The  principal  was  softly  making  the  rounds  of  the  room. 
Felix  had  not  seen  him  enter,  and  was  not  aware  of  his 
presence  until  he  saw  the  tall  shape  leaning  over  his  shoul 
der,  looking  at  his  tablet.     Felix  was  proud  of  his  hand 
writing,  and  he  pushed  the  writing  exercise  over  for  the 
principal  to  see.     But  the  principal  continued  to  look  at  the 
tablet.     He  had  seen  the  name  on  the  side  of  Blair's  Board 
ing-House  that  noon,  and  now  he  had  found  the  culprit. 
"Are  you  Felix  Fay?"  he  asked. 
"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Did  you  write  your  name  on  the  side  of  Blair's  Board 
ing-House  ?  " 

The  question  came  like  an  earthquake.     Felix  had  forgot 
ten  all  about  it.     Now  he  realized  that  he  had  committed  a 
crime  in  thus  desecrating  the  civic  landscape. 
"  Yes,  sir,"  he  said  faintly. 

"  What  did  you  do  that  for  ?  "  the  principal  asked  sternly. 
At  that  moment  Felix  became  conscious  of  the  tell-tale 
words  written  on  the  paper  before  him.     He  blushed  all 
over.     Those  words  seemed  to  him  a  naked  revelation  of  all 
his  secret  thoughts.     He  wanted  to  destroy  the  paper,  but  he 
could  not  make  a  movement. 
"  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  dully. 

"  You  don't  know  ?  "  repeated  the  torturer.  "  You  must 
be  very  proud  of  your  name."  He  took  up  the  tablet  on 
which  the  name  was  written.  "  What's  this  ?  "  he  exclaimed, 
looking  at  it  more  closely. 


'What  Is  Known  as  Egotism"       6l 

Felix  shrank  in  his  clothes,  while  the  Principal  read  it 
over  carefully  to  himself.  Then  he  turned  to  Felix. 

"  I  want  you,"  he  said  bitingly,  **  to  show  the  room  what 
you  have  been  doing  instead  of  writing  your  lesson. — 
Write  that  on  the  board  three  times." 

Miss  Croly,  the  teacher,  flushed  angrily,  and  made  a  pro 
testing  gesture. 

As  one  under  sentence  of  death,  pale,  but  rigid  to  conceal 
his  trembling,  Felix  walked  slowly  to  the  blackboard,  faced 
the  whole  room  with  its  hundred  staring  eyes,  lifted  his  head 
proudly,  turned  to  the  blackboard  and  wrote  the  offending 
sentence  slowly  in  large  defiant  letters. 

Then  he  crumbled  the  chalk  between  his  ringers,  let  it 
drop  to  the  floor,  and  walked  back  to  his  seat. 

There  was  a  hush  all  over  the  room.  Nobody  knew  what 
it  meant.  Felix's  bearing  was  so  little  like  that  of  a  culprit 
that  it  did  not  seem  that  they  were  intended  to  laugh  at  his 
discomfiture.  The  principal  was  embarrassed.  '*  That,"  he 
said  finally,  "  is  what  is  known  as  egotism,"  and  went  out. 

Miss  Croly  hastily  called  the  arithmetic  class,  and  herself 
erased  from  the  blackboard  the  words  that  Felix  had  writ 
ten.  Felix  left  the  room,  took  his  cap,  and  hurried  to 
Blair's  Boarding-House,  trembling  with  rage  and  shame. 
Ignoring  the  people  about,  he  commenced  to  rub  out  his 
name,  with  his  handkerchief,  his  cap,  his  coat  sleeve,  his 
bare  hands.  The  letters  seemed  to  have  grown  gigantic, 
overtopping  his  own  height,  blazoning  his  vain  dreams  to 
the  world.  A  crowd  began  to  gather.  He  stopped  sud 
denly  and  ran  home. 

That  night  a  kindly  rain  came  and  washed  the  offending 
letters  from  the  wall.  They  were  not  there  to  reproach 
Felix  when  he  went  to  school  the  next  day.  The  incident 
was  closed.  Felix,  sleeplessly  tossing  in  bed  in  feverish 
torment,  had  resolved  over  and  over  again  never  to  write 
another  line. 


VI  The  Stranger  Sex 


I 


N  the  world  in  which  Felix  lived,  girls  were  a  race 
apart.     Earlier,  while  his  sister  Ann  had  been  going 

to  school,  they  had  come  to  the  house  occasionally  — 

a  set  of  wild  tormentors  like  herself,  whose  silly  and  teasing 
remarks  he  haughtily  ignored.  There  was  at  school  a  boys' 
playground  and  a  girls',  and  the  two  tribes  seldom  mixed. 
Felix  had  never  become  acquainted  with  any  girl-child  of 
his  own  age. 

He  had,  it  is  true,  walked  to  school  a  few  times  with  a 
pretty,  dark-eyed  little  girl  who  lived  in  his  own  neighbour 
hood.  He  had  overtaken  her  the  first  time  by  accident,  and 
accompanied  her  out  of  some  notion  of  politeness.  But  he 
liked  her  because  she  was  quiet  —  unlike  his  sister  and  her 
rowdy  friends ;  and  he  began  to  linger  about  his  door  wait 
ing  for  her  to  come  along.  This  did  not  escape  the  notice 
of  his  family,  and  soon  they  began  to  tease  him  about  her. 
"  How's  your  little  sweetheart  ?  "  his  father  would  ask  with 
mocking  seriousness.  And  his  sister  would  sing: 

"  Felix's  mad  and  I'm  glad, 
And  I  know  ivhat  will  please  him  — 
A  bottle  of  zvine  to  make  him  shine, 
And  Lucy  Day  to  squeeze  him!" 

But  it  was  not  so  much  these  outrageous  mockeries,  as 
the  pretended  seriousness  with  which  the  others  of  his 
family  took  the  relationship,  that  alarmed.  They  would  say, 
at  the  supper-table,  "  Well,  Felix  is  growing  up.  He's  got 
a  sweetheart  already.  I  suppose  he'll  be  staying  out  late 
at  night,  next !  "  There  was  an  appalling  innuendo  in  such 
remarks  for  Felix.  He  began  to  realize  that  something 

62 


The  Stranger  Sex  63 

further  was  expected  of  him.  These  jokes  were  maddening 
and  terrifying;  what  was  this  mysterious  realm  into  which 
he  had  unwittingly  intruded?  Could  not  a  fellow  walk  to 
school  with  a  girl  once  or  twice  without  —  What  did  they 
expect  of  him?  What  did  Lucy  expect  of  him?  That  was 
a  terrible  thought.  Perhaps  she  was  already  considering 
him  ridiculous,  and  laughing  at  him  behind  his  back  because 
he  did  not  know  how  to  behave. 

He  remembered  the  game  of  Postoffice  at  a  children's 
party  to  which  he  had  gone,  and  how  one  of  the  little  boys 
had  called  out  and  kissed  again  and  again,  amidst  much 
badinage,  the  same  little  girl.  He  would  probably  have  to 
take  her  to  parties,  and  behave  like  that :  and  the  prospect 
dismayed  him  infinitely.  .  .  .  What  he  had  read  about  love 
in  books  did  not  occur  to  his  mind  in  this  connection ;  that 
was  of  a  different  world.  Painfully  he  groped  among  the 
thorny  realities,  trying  to  find  a  path.  .  .  .  Yes,  and  he 
would  have  to  take  her  home  from  the  party.  Then  he 
would  have  to  stand  there  by  the  gate  and  talk  to  her  —  a 
long  time.  And  then  —  Oh  yes,  this  especially  !  —  he  would 
have  to  "treat"  her.  Buy  her  candy  and  little  presents. 
His  mother  had  already  suggested  this  to  him.  When  he  had 
demanded  a  nickel  for  a  new  tablet,  she  asked  him  kindly  if 
he  didn't  want  another  nickel  to  buy  candy  for  "  somebody." 
He  knew  well  enough  whom  it  was  she  meant  by  "  some 
body,"  and  he  drew  back  his  eagerly  outstretched  hand  and 
put  it  behind  him,  and  hung  his  head. 

Buying  her  presents  —  that  was  the  final  impossibility. 
He  never  had  any  money.  He  never  treated  anybody.  He 
hated  to  let  any  of  the  little  boys  treat  him,  because  they 
expected  you  to  treat  them  back.  Where  was  he  to  get  the 
money  to  buy  Lucy  candy  ?  Come  to  his  mother  every  time 
and  ask  for  it?  No.  Besides,  he  knew  she  did  not  have 
much  to  give.  They  were  poor.  Why,  he  had  to  wear  his 
big  brothers'  clothes,  made  over.  He  could  not  buy  presents 
for  girls.  If  that  was  what  she  was  expecting  — 

Or  was  it  the  kissing?     He  flushed  when  he  thought  of 


64  Moon-Calf 

it.  He  had  never  even  so  much  as  touched  her.  Did  she, 
perhaps,  consider  him  a  ninny  ? 

Into  the  faint  and  shy  beginnings  of  his  acquaintanceship 
with  this  little  girl,  these  suggestions  of  a  vast  system  of 
technical  adult  behaviour  came  with  a  rude  shock.  He 
stopped  walking  to  school  with  Lucy  Day  —  he  kept  inside 
the  house  until  she  had  lingeringly  passed,  and  then  he 
hurried  to  school  by  another  road.  Soon  he  had  managed 
to  put  her  out  of  his  consciousness. 

He  had  never  talked  about  girls,  and  seldom  listened  to 
conversation  about  them.  The  more  lurid  references  to 
sex,  which  occasionally  met  his  ears  on  the  playground,  he 
ignored  with  the  hauteur  of  shyness.  He  knew  more  about 
the  subject  scientifically  than  the  other  children,  having 
gained  much  recondite  knowledge  from  the  old  "doctor- 
book"  in  the  attic  which  his  mother  had  once  taken  away 
from  him.  He  stood  scornfully  aloof  from  coarseness  of 
speech;  but  nevertheless  the  suggestions  of  such  speech 
contributed  to  his  diffidence  with  regard  to  girls.  They 
were  beings  whom  he  did  not  know  just  how  he  ought  to 
deal  with,  and  hence  a  part  of  the  mysterious  and  trouble 
some  real  world  which  he  feared  and  disliked.  .  .  .  He 
preferred  the  gorgeous  fantasies  which  were  unrolled  for 
him  in  the  pages  of  books. 

He  believed  in  these  books  without  any  question  of  their 
truth  in  the  outside  world  in  which  he  lived  with  so  much 
difficulty  and  embarrassment.  His  imagination  responded 
freely  to  the  theme  of  sex  as  he  found  it  in  books.  He  en 
joyed  the  frank  sensuality  of  Shakespeare's  "Venus  and 
Adonis"  without  being  made  in  the  least  more  conscious 
of  the  girls  who  sat  in  the  same  room  at  school. 

It  was  customary,  at  school,  for  boys  to  sit  with  boys, 
and  girls  with  girls.  But  sometimes,  during  a  temporary 
shortage  of  seating-room,  it  became  necessary  to  put  a  boy 
and  a  girl  together  for  the  day.  Once  Felix  was  assigned 
to  sit  with  a  girl.  He  accepted  the  arrangement  calmly,  but 
the  girl  blushed  and  giggled  until  the  teacher  had  to  lecture 


The  Stranger  Sex  65 

her  on  "false  modesty."  Felix  wondered  why  she  was 
making  such  a  fuss  about  it.  He  had  been  reading  with 
great  interest  a  highly  coloured  romance  which  dealt  with 
the  most  adult  relationships  of  the  sexes;  but  he  regarded 
the  blushing  miss  at  his  side  with  complete  emotional  un 
concern. 

He  had  recently  conceived  a  romantic  passion  for  Miss 
Croly,  the  teacher  who  had  taken  his  part  against  the  prin 
cipal.  He  had  been  alienated  from  her  for  a  while  after 
that  incident,  because  of  some  obscure  feeling  that  she  had 
betrayed  him  into  his  painful  humiliation  that  day  at  school. 
But  as  she  continued  to  be  kind,  he  succumbed  again  to  her 
charm,  and  became  troubled  by  a  desire  to  serve  her.  It 
was  from  her  that  he  had  his  first  lesson  in  manners.  She 
asked  him  to  stay  after  school  one  afternoon,  and  said  to 
him,  "Felix,  you  are  getting  to  be  quite  grown  up,  and  you 
will  have  to  behave  as  grown-up  people  do  in  certain  ways. 
For  instance,  when  you  meet  me  on  the  street,  I  want  you 
to  tip  your  cap  to  me.  Will  you  remember  ? " 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Felix,  blushing  that  he  should  have 
been  so  delinquent  in  this  duty  as  to  require  instruction.  He 
was  hurrying  off,  when  she  had  an  inspiration  and  called 
him  back.  "I  want  to  tell  you  why  you  must  do  this, 
Felix,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Felix. 

"In  the  story-books  you  read,"  she  said,  "you  remember 
that  men  bow  to  ladies,  and  take  off  their  casques  —  casques 
with  plumes  to  them,  Felix  !"  —  his  eyes  lighted  up,  and  she 
saw  that  she  had  his  inward  attention  — ' '  and  bow  low, 
casque  in  hand,  until  the  plume  sweeps  the  ground!"  She 
made  the  gesture,  grandly  and  gracefully,  and  Felix  loved 
her  for  it. 

"In  those  days,  Felix,"  she  went  on,  "men  were  always 
fighting,  and  so  they  had  to  wear  armour  to  protect  them 
selves.  But  men  do  not  fight  women  —  they  fight  for  them. 
And  so,  when  a  knight  met  a  lady,  he  took  off  his  helmet  and 
bowed,  to  show  that  he  was  ready  to  serve  her.  'At  your 


66  Moon-Calf 

service,  milady  !  '  " —  and  she  made  the  grand  gesture  again. 

"  Nowadays/'  she  continued,  "  men  do  not  fight  each 
other,  and  so  they  do  not  wear  armour.  But  women  still 
need  to  be  protected  and  served,  and  so  when  a  gentleman 
meets  a  lady  he  takes  off  his  hat,  or  touches  his  cap,  to 
show  that  he  is  ready  to  serve  her.  Now  you  understand, 
don't  you,  Felix  ?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Felix,  and  went  home  with  a  heroic 
glow  in  his  heart. 

Yet  when  he  met  Miss  Croly  in  the  street  next  day,  it 
took  all  his  courage  to  make  that  simple  gesture.  When 
first  he  saw  her,  he  had  a  moment  of  wild  panic,  and  thought 
of  turning  back  and  going  the  other  way,  or  of  looking  down 
and  pretending  that  he  did  not  see  her.  But  he  clenched  his 
teeth  and  approached  his  doom  heroically.  When  ?  now  ?  — 
no,  not  yet  —  wait  till  she  is  a  little  nearer  —  now  !  Now, 
you  fool !  Quick !  — 

She  smiled.  "  How  do  you  do,  Felix ! "  And  Felix 
raised  his  paralyzed  arm  to  his  cap,  gave  the  visor  a  little 
twitch  with  numb  fingers,  and  hurried  on  past  with  all  the 
emotions  of  one  who  has  just  undergone  a  painful  death. 
.  .  .  After  that  first  time  it  was  easier.  \/ 

He  was  always  hanging  around  her  desk,  awaiting  the 
opportunity  to  perform  the  service  of  which  this  painful 
gesture  was  the  symbolic  promise.  At  last  the  opportunity 
came.  One  afternoon  Miss  Croly  had  to  stay  to  coach  some 
backward  pupils,  and  she  asked  Felix  to  take  a  note  to  her 
sister  at  the  candy  store.  Felix  took  the  note  and  hastened 
there  eagerly. 

But  something  went  wrong.  Miss  Croly's  sister  was  not 
at  the-  candy  store.  She  had  gone  home,  but  would  prob 
ably  be  back  soon.  Didn't  he  want  to  leave  the  note?  No 
—  he  would  not  surrender  it.  Instead,  he  inquired  the  way 
to  her  home,  and  carried  it  there,  a  distance  of  two  miles. 
On  the  way,  he  wondered  if  he  were  not  doing  something 
foolish  and  uncalled-for.  But  even  so  it  was  a  folly  of 
which  he  felt  a  little  proud.  Miss  Croly  had  said,  "  Give 


The  Stranger  Sex  67 

it  to  my  sister,"  and  how  should  he  know  that  some  one  else 
would  do? 

If  only  he  knew  what  was  in  the  note!  .  .  .  But  all  his 
knightly  code  of  morals  forbade  him  to  open  and  read  it. 
He  trudged  on  to  the  girl's  home. 

But  she  was  not  there.  She  had  left  for  the  store,  they 
said.  Hadn't  he  passed  her  on  the  way  ?  Doubtless  he  had, 
Felix  said  to  himself  —  and  he,  like  a  fool,  had  not  seen  her. 
A  fine  person  he  was  to  get  to  do  an  errand !  Disconsolate 
but  grimly  determined,  he  went  back  to  the  store. 

She  had  not  yet  arrived.  .  .  .  Felix  did  not  know  what 
to  do,  and  was  just  shamefacedly  starting  back  to  the  school 
to  report  failure,  when  she  came  up.  He  triumphantly  de 
livered  the  missive.  She  opened  it.  Felix  hoped  that  it 
was  something  very  important,  to  justify  his  pains.  "  Oh, 
she  wants  some  marshmallows.  Just  give  it  to  the  girl  in 
side." 

So,  at  last  —  realizing  bitterly  that  anybody  with  any 
sense  would  have  done  the  right  thing  and  handed  in  the 
note  at  the  candy  store  an  hour  ago  —  he  started  back  to 
school  with  the  marshmallows.  On  the  way  he  comforted 
himself  with  the  thought  that  at  any  rate  he  had  stuck  it 
out.  He  was  beginning  to  admire  himself  a  little  when  he 
reached  the  school-room.  It  was  empty.  .  .  .  Miss  Croly 
had  gone  home,  the  janitor  said. 

This  was  too  terrible.  There  was  just  one  chance  to  save 
the  situation.  He  knew  that  he  would  not  dare  come  to 
school  and  face  her  tomorrow  if  he  did  not  get  the  candy 
to  her  now.  And  he  knew  that  he  would  never  have  the 
courage  to  knock  at  her  door  and  deliver  it  to  her  in  the 
presence  of  her  family.  He  must  overtake  her  before  she 
reached  home.  He  started  running  as  fast  as  he  could. 

At  last  he  saw  her  in  the  distance.  There  was  a  pain  in 
his  side,  and  he  was  out  of  breath.  He  could  not  approach 
her  this  way.  He  slowed  down,  recovered  his  breath,  and 
then  caught  up  with  her  in  an  easy  walk.  "  Oh,  Miss 
Croly!"  he  called 


68  Moon-Calf 

She  turned.  "Oh,  it's  you,  Felix!  And  you  have  the 
candy!  You  nice  boy!  I  left  school  earlier  than  I  in 
tended,  and  I  wondered  what  you  would  think  of  me  for 
sending  you  on  a  wild-goose-chase.  It  was  very  nice  of  you 
to  think  of  bringing  them  to  me,  after  you  found  I  wasn't 
at  school."  She  had  stopped  at  the  store,  and  heard  the 
story  of  Felix's  wanderings,  and  been  much  amused;  but 
Felix  did  not  realize  this,  and  her  words  were  a  magic  salve 
to  his  wounded  egotism.  "Won't  you  have  one  ? " 

"Thank  you,"  said  Felix,  and  took  one.  Then  he  realized 
that  he  had  not  tipped  his  cap  to  her.  So  he  did  so,  and 
was  off.  .  .  . 

That  nightmare  was  over;  and  Felix  had  no  intention  of 
having  any  such  thing  happen  again.  He  knew  now  that 
he  had  no  aptitude  for  the  service  of  ladies  fair;  and  his 
knightly  mood,  submerged  in  his  old  shyness,  soon  disap 
peared. 


Except  for  such  brief  interludes,  he  had  been  untouched 
by  the  influence  of  the  other  sex.  And  he  was  in  a  mood 
remote  from  any  consciousness  of  women  as  living  beings, 
when  one  of  them  entered  quite  definitely  into  his  life,  in 
the  summer  of  his  twelfth  year. 

Her  name  was  Rose. 

The  Fay  family  had  moved  again  that  spring,  into  part  of 
a  house  otherwise  inhabited  by  an  old  man  and  his  grand 
daughter.  Old  Mr.  Henderson  was  a  gardener,  and  there 
were  greenhouses  and  glass-covered  hot-beds,  and  other 
georgic  mysteries  about  the  place,  in  which  Felix  took,  as 
was  his  custom,  no  interest  whatever.  Rose,  who  was  about 
fifteen  years  old,  helped  her  grandfather  at  his  work;  and 
though  Felix  did  not  take  any  interest  in  her  either,  he  saw 
her,  busy  with  watering-pot  or  spray-pump,  at  morning  or 
evening  —  a  tall,  quiet,  black-eyed  girl  just  beginning  to 
outgrow  the  lankiness  of  adolescence. 

The  only  way  that  either  of  these  people  impinged  on 


The  Stranger  Sex  69 

Felix's  consciousness  was  by  their  curious  habit  of  praying 
aloud  every  night  before  they  went  to  sleep.  Their  voices 
sounded  clearly  through  the  partitions.  First,  in  a  farther 
room,  the  old  man  would  pray,  earnestly  and  at  great  length  ; 
and  then,  in  the  room  next  to  the  one  in  which  Felix  himself 
slept,  the  girl  would  recite  the  Lord's  Prayer  —  kneeling, 
as  Felix  surmised,  on  the  floor  beside  her  bed.  Then  the 
old  man  would  call  out  in  deep  tones,  "  Good  night,  Rosie," 
and  the  girl  would  reply,  "  Sweet  dreams,  grandpa ! "  The 
Fays  were  not  a  praying  family,  and  the  unusualness  of 
this  custom  made  a  brief  impression  on  Felix;  and  then  he 
paid  no  more  attention  to  it. 

There  was  something  else  to  engage  Felix's  interest. 

There  was  a  trap-door  in  the  ceiling  of  his  bedroom, 
leading  undoubtedly  to  an  attic ;  the  regular  staircase  to  this 
attic  must  presumably  be  on  the  Henderson  side  of  the 
house  —  an  arrangement  which  Felix  considered  unfortu 
nate.  For  attics  are  places  where  old  books  may  be  found. 
Felix  studied  the  trap-door  speculatively  for  many  morn 
ings  before  he  got  out  of  bed.  A  step-ladder  would  reach 
it  —  but  there  wasn't  any  step-ladder.  .  .  .  He  considered 
other  ways  and  means. 

One  Sunday,  a  week  after  school  had  closed  for  the  sum 
mer,  he  carried  out  his  plan.  First  he  moved  the  bedstead 
out  a  foot  or  so  from  the  wall,  so  that  its  tall  wooden  head 
board  stood  directly  under  the  trap-door.  Then  he  moved 
the  tall  chest  of  drawers  a  little  nearer  to  the  bedstead.  A 
chair  in  front  of  the  chest  of  drawers  completed  the  ladder. 
Standing  precariously  on  the  top  of  the  headboard,  with 
one  hand  grasping  the  picture-moulding  for  support,  he  was 
able  to  push  the  trap-door  aside.  A  quantity  of  accumulated 
dust  fell  down  into  his  eyes  and  into  his  open  mouth;  but 
this  only  spurred  him  to  renewed  enterprise.  Loosing  his 
hold  upon  the  picture-moulding,  he  clutched  the  edge  of  the 
opening  with  both  hands,  and  swung  himself  free  from  his 
foothold.  Felix  had  always  been  rather  timid  and  clumsy 
at  climbing,  but  now  that  there  was  a  real  reason  for  climb- 


yo  Moon-Calf 

ing,  he  found  himself  unafraid  and  sufficiently  expert.  A 
single  effort  drew  him  up  to  the  floor  of  the  attic.  He  sat 
down,  spat  out  the  dust,  blinked  his  eyes,  and  looked  about 
in  the  gloom.  Sure  enough,  there  was  discernible  the  out 
line  of  an  old  trunk.  It  proved  to  be  unlocked  —  and  to 
contain  books. 

It  further  developed  that  if  one  opened  the  shutters  of 
the  gable  window,  and  rubbed  the  dust  from  the  window- 
panes  with  one's  sleeve,  the  place  became  light  enough  to 
read  in.  Felix  examined  the  books.  They  were  mostly 
government  reports  on  methods  of  gardening,  with  realistic 
coloured  photographs  of  caterpillars  and  insects.  But 
Felix  kept  on  searching,  and  turned  up  three  books  which 
promised  to  be  interesting.  They  were  called  "  Percy's 
Reliques,"  "  The  Confessions  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau," 
and  "  The  Book  of  Mormon." 

Felix  did  not  wonder  how  these  books  came  to  be  in  the 
attic  of  a  house  inhabited  by  an  old  gardener  who  prayed 
aloud  every  night  before  he  went  to  bed.  Their  presence 
here  adumbrated  no  mystery  to  him.  Besides,  it  was  not 
his  habit  to  make  inquiries  concerning  the  events  of  the  real 
world.  He  took  things  as  he  found  them.  He  sat  on  the 
floor  by  the  window,  with  his  back  against  the  trunk,  and 
read.  Twilight  found  him  deep  in  the  adventures  of  the 
gods  and  demi-gods  of  "  The  Book  of  Mormon." 

He  debated  whether  to  take  the  books  down  with  him. 
It  was  pleasant  to  have  a  secret  place  where  he  could  read 
undisturbed.  So  he  hung,  and  dropped,  as  unobstrusively 
as  possible,  upon  the  bed.  The  trap-door,  he  discovered, 
could  be  coaxed  back  almost  into  place  with  a  broom-handle, 
so  as  to  leave  no  trace  of  the  adventure.  .  .  .  The  next 
morning  he  came  back,  by  a  daring  arrangement  which  left 
the  furniture  almost  in  its  natural  position ;  and  closing  the 
trap-door  after  him,  dipped  into  Percy's  "  Reliques "  and 
forgot  the  world. 


The  Stranger  Sex  71 


He  had  been  making  the  attic  his  trysting-place  for  ten 
days,  and  was  immersed  one  afternoon  in  the  "  Confes 
sions  "  of  Rousseau,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  noise  at 
the  door  by  which  the  attic  was  entered  from  the  Henderson 
side  of  the  house.  Felix  waited  silently,  holding  his  breath. 
There  was  no  use  trying  to  get  down,  now. —  The  lock 
rattled,  a  bolt  shot  back,  and  the  girl  entered. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  standing  in  the  doorway,  "  so  it's  you !  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix. 

She  closed  the  door  behind  her,  and  came  up  to  him.  "  I 
heard  funny  noises,"  she  said,  "  and  wondered  if  it  was  the 
rats."  She  smiled.  "  How  did  you  get  in?" 

He  explained. 

"  What  are  you  doing?  " 

"  Reading,"  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment  silently,  and  then  dusted  off 
the  corner  of  the  trunk  with  her  apron,  and  sat  down.  "  It's 
dusty  here,  isn't  it !  "  she  said. 

"  Yes,"  he  agreed,  wishing  she  would  go.  But  she  sat 
waiting  silently,  and  after  a  minute  said,  "  Go  on  reading." 

He  obeyed,  and  turned  his  attention  again  to  the  book, 
but  presently  she  exclaimed,  "Oh,  I  meant  read  to  me!" 

"  Oh,"  he  said.  "  All  right."  He  read  a  page  aloud,  and 
then  looked  up  in  a  little  embarrassment,  for  her  presence 
made  him  vaguely  aware  that  what  he  was  reading  was  not 
the  sort  of  thing  that  is  contained  in  books  intended  for 
young  people.  But,  looking  at  him  with  grave  eyes,  she 
said,  "  I  like  it.  Go  on." 

His  embarrassment  vanished,  and  he  read  on  for  half  an 
hour.  Then  he  paused,  and  pushed  the  book  away  for  a 
moment,  stirring  his  cramped  legs. 

"  Is  that  the  end  of  the  chapter?  "  she  asked 

"  Yes,"  he  said. 

"  Then  let's  leave  it  until  tomorrow,  and  go  outdoors." 
She  jumped  up. 


72  Moon-Calf 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  he  said,  and  rose. 

"  Let's  see  how  you  get  down,"  she  demanded.  He 
started  to  descend.  She  knelt  and  watched,  quietly,  without 
expressing  any  obtrusive  concern  for  his  safety.  He 
dropped  lightly  to  the  bed. 

"  All  right?  "  she  called,  looking  down  at  him.  "  I'll  meet 
you  at  the  other  end  of  the  lot." 

She  smiled,  and  the  trap-door  closed. 


Felix  had  not  particularly  noticed  her  while  they  had 
been  together,  but  as  he  went  into  the  sunlight  he  had  a 
sudden  memory  picture  of  the  dark  garret,  and  of  the 
listening  girl,  calm  and  impassive,  seated  on  the  trunk,  and 
of  himself  crouched  beside  her  in  the  patch  of  sunlight  that 
filtered  through  the  dusty  window-panes,  making  the  open 
pages  of  the  book  on  his  lap  the  brightest  spot  in  the  room. 
He  saw  himself  with  his  hair  falling  into  his  eyes,  brushing 
it  back  with  an  unconscious  movement ;  and  the  girl,  sitting 
erect  and  quiet,  with  dark,  wide-open,  unwavering  eyes. 
It  startled  him,  this  picture;  but  it  vanished  in  a  moment 
when  she  met  him  at  the  end  of  the  lot.  She  was  simply 
Rose,  old  Henderson's  granddaughter. 

"  It's  nicer  outdoors,"  she  said.     "  Isn't  it !  " 

"  Yes,"  he  vaguely  agreed,  wondering  why  he  had  said  he 
would  go. 

"  We  are  going  to  Barker's  Woods,"  she  informed  him. 

They  walked  along  together  silently.  He  had  begun  to 
think  about  something  else  when  she  commenced  to  tell  him 
about  her  grandfather's  business,  which  was  not  doing  well. 
Felix  scarcely  listened.  They  reached  the  wood,  a  deserted 
place  a  mile  or  so  away,  and  sat  down  on  the  grass. 

i(  Tell  me  a  story,"  she  said. 

"What  kind  of  story?"  he  asked. 

"  Any  kind.     I  like  stories." 

He  looked  at  her,  bored  and  incredulous.  He  knew  what 
girls  were  like  —  or,  at  least,  what  they  were  not  like.  They 


The  Stranger  Sex  73 

did  not  mean  what  they  said  when  they  talked  like  that. 
They  were  always  talking  like  that.  They  did  it  to  get 
around  you.  They  pretended  to  want  to  do  what  you  were 
doing,  but  it  always  ended  by  your  doing  what  they  wanted 
to  do.  He  had  wanted  to  read  in  the  garret,  and  now  he 
found  himself  here  in  the  woods  with  this  girl.  She  was 
only  pretending  when  she  said,  "  Tell  me  a  story." —  All 
this  flowed  through  the  back  of  his  mind,  an  uneasy  stream 
of  suspicion,  and  he  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Really,  I  do  want  to  hear  a  story,"  said  the  girl.  "  And 
when  you've  told  one,  then  I'll  do  something,  too ! " 

His  attitude  changed.  If  she  offered  something  in  re 
turn  for  his  story,  then  perhaps  it  was  true  —  perhaps  she 
liked  stories  in  the  same  way  that  he  did.  .  .  .  "  What  will 
you  do  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  I'll  think  of  something.  You  go 
ahead  with  your  story.  And  make  it  a  good  one !  " 

Here  was  a  challenge.  He  met  it  with  a  grotesque  fan 
tasy  of  Hugo's,  the  story  of  "The  Man  Who  Laughs." 
Both  of  them  sat  motionless  there  on  the  grass  in  the  after 
noon  shade  and  sun  while  the  quaint  and  gorgeous  pattern 
of  that  fiction  was  unrolled.  At  the  end  she  sighed.  "  Is 
that  all?"  she  asked. 

"  Yes." 

"  You  tell  stories  beautifully  !  " 

Felix's  spirit,  starved  for  praise,  fed  on  the  light  of  ap 
preciation  in  her  eyes.  He  knew  now  that  he  liked  her. 
After  a  while  he  reminded  her,  "  Now  it's  your  turn." 

She  rose.  Felix  was  prepared  to  admire,  but  he  was  not 
prepared  for  what  happened.  For  in  an  instant  a  trans 
formation  took  place,  which  changed  this  lanky,  rather 
awkward  girl  whom  he  had  seen  a  hundred  times,  into  a 
new  person  —  a  creature  strangely  and  more  than  humanly 
beautiful.  It  began  with  the  way  she  rose  to  her  feet.  It 
was  with  such  a  movement  as  he  had  never  before  seen  — 
a  single  miraculously  graceful  movement,  unassisted  by  her 
hands ;  she  seemed  merely  to  twist  her  legs  beneath  her,  and 


74  Moon-Calf 

then  be  lifted  by  some  mysterious  power  up  from  the 
ground,  as  lightly  as  a  curl  of  smoke.  And  once  on  her 
feet  she  had  seemed  to  grow  divinely  tall.  She  stood  with 
a  bearing  that  seemed  to  Felix,  as  he  lay  there  staring 
incredulously  up  at  her,  to  belong  to  goddess  or  fairy  or 
some  Princess  of  his  childhood's  Arabian  Nights.  She 
stood  quite  still,  leaning  forward  a  little,  with  head  thrown 
back ;  one  arm  was  bent,  the  hand  shut  and  pressed  against 
her  bosom,  the  other  arm  held  a  little  stiffly  out  from  her 
side,  the  fingers  spread  in  a  gesture  which,  tiny  as  it  was, 
seemed  meant  to  command  vast  crowds  to  quiet ;  behind  her 
was  the  trunk  of  an  old  oak,  and  the  round  top  of  the  hill. 
She  began  to  speak  what  must  have  been,  though  Felix  did 
not  know,  words  from  some  forgotten  play: 

"My  lords  and  gentlemen,  I  cry  you  mercy! 
You  have  your  will  of  us,  we  live  to  please  you, 
We  wait  upon  your  laughter  and  your  tears, 
We  are  your  playthings  —  toys  are  we,  very  toys! 
When  you  are  weary  of  us,  we  are  thrown  aside 
And  he  forgotten  in  Time's  dustbin.     Yet 
For  all  that,  we  are  masters  of  you  still. 
You  cannot  do  without  us,  though  you  try! 
The  time  will  come  when  you  will  knoiv  it  is  not 
Beggars  and  trick-mongers  that  you  have  banished, 
But  the  high  gods,  who  even  in  our  shapes 
Do  teach  you,  merrily  and  quaintly  enough, 
That  there  are  things  beyond  your  ignorance." 

From  time  to  time  as  she  spoke,  there  had  peered  out 
from  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  play-acting  girl  an  even 
stranger  mischievous,  elvish  quality ;  and  as  she  finished,  she 
changed  again :  whipping  open  the  little  fan  she  had  brought 
with  her  to  the  wood,  she  stooped  toward  him,  clasping  her 
skirts  in  one  hand,  and,  looking  at  him  roguishly  from  be 
hind  her  fan,  sang  a  quaint  and  dancingly  rhyming  song 
which  Felix  had  never  heard,  about  "  three  little  maids 
from  school."  .  .  .  Then  suddenly  she  straightened  herself, 
dropped  her  fan,  and  with  rigidly  erect  and  scornful  body, 
broke  into  Isabella's  speech  from  "  Measure  for  Measure," 
ending, — 


The  Stranger  Sex  75 

"But  man,  proud  man, 
Dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority, 
Most  ignorant  of  what  he's  most  assured, 
His  glassy  essence,  like  an  angry  ape, 
Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels  weep." 

One  would  have  been  certain  that  she  had  been  reared,  not 
by  a  pious  grandfather,  but  among  actor-folk.  Felix  was, 
however,  incapable  of  any  such  thought.  He  only  wor 
shipped.  "  You're  wonderful !  "  he  cried. 

The  girl  flushed  in  her  turn.  "Do  you  really  like  it?" 
she  asked.  "  My  mother  taught  me.  I  know  lots  of  things 
like  that." 

But  Felix  did  not  ask  about  her  mother.  He  was  amazed 
and  grateful,  to  have  her.  .  .  .  And  it  occurred  to  him,  in 
a  vivid  and  intoxicating  flash,  that  they  were  people  who 
could  give  to  each  other  the  things  they  valued  —  and  not 
be  laughed  at.  His  stories,  her  play-acting.  .  .  .  He  felt 
lifted  with  her  high  above  the  world.  .  .  . 

Rose  rolled  over  on  the  grass.  "  It  would  be  nice  if  we 
could  build  a  fire  and  cook  our  supper  here,"  she  said. 

"  Yes,"  assented  Felix.  "  I've  never  done  that.  I  sup 
pose  it  is  nice." 

"  I've  never  done  it  either,"  she  confessed.  "  Let's,  some 
time  !  "  She  began  to  puzzle  out  a  solution  of  the  practical 
difficulties.  *'  I've  got  to  get  dinner  for  my  grandfather. 
But  we'll  do  it  afterward.  I'll  save  a  piece  of  meat  and 
some  coffee." 

Felix  joined  with  eagerness  in  her  plans. 

"  Have  you  got  a  knife?"  she  asked  irrelevantly. 

"  Yes." 

"  Give  it  to  me.     I  want  to  make  a  whistle." 

He  gave  it  to  her,  and  she  cut  off  a  slim  smooth  branch 
and  started  to  work.  It  was  not  the  proper  season  for  mak 
ing  whistles,  however,  and  the  bark  refused  to  slip  from 
the  wood.  Felix,  as  a  boy,  ought  to  have  known  what  was 
the  trouble,  but  he  didn't.  When  she  had  quite  daborately 
failed,  he  tried  too,  with  no  more  success. 


76  Moon-Calf 

"  I'm  no  good  at  making  things,"  he  confessed,  throwing 
away  the  bewhittled  stick,  and  looking  at  her  to  see  the  effect 
of  his  words. 

"Neither  am  I,"  she  laughed. 

"I  can't  even  play  marbles,"  he  said,  "  that  is,  not  well 
enough  to  count.  Nor  baseball,  nor  any  of  those  things." 
Let  there  be  no  false  pretences ! 

"  I  think  games  are  silly,"  she  said. 

She  had  passed  the  test  triumphantly ! 

"  Now  I've  got  to  go  home  and  get  grandpa's  dinner, 

she  said. 

They  walked  back  almost  silently,  but  with  the  sense  of 
a  deeply  established  comradeship. 

"  That  garret  is  awfully  dirty,"  she  said  just  before  they 
parted.  "I'm  going  to  fix  it  up  tomorrow." 


VII  The  Hand  of  Reality 


I  HE  next  morning  Felix  awoke  bewilderedly  from 
a  disconcerting  dream  —  a  very  curious  dream,  in 
which  he  seemed  to  have  awakened  and  discovered 
events  of  the  last  two  weeks  —  the  garret,  the  books, 
the   girl  — -  were   only   a   dream !     Awaking,   now,   he   was 
puzzled  to  disentangle  reality  and  dream.     Then  he  heard 
sounds  overhead.     Rose  was  there  "  fixing  it  up."     So  it 
was  true! 

It  was  not  until  some  hours  later  that  he  was  able  to  make 
his  ascent  unobserved.  He  found  the  place  transformed. 
The  floor  had  been  swept  and  scrubbed,  and  some  rag-rugs 
and  sofa-pillows  were  spread  upon  it.  The  window-panes, 
really  clean,  let  in  a  flood  of  daylight.  And  there  was  a 
bowl  of  fresh- roasted  buttered  popcorn  standing  in  the 
midst  of  it  all. 

Felix  was  surprised  and  strangely  pleased.  He  had 
grown  to  dislike  his  mother's  perpetual  attempts  to  "  make 
him  comfortable  " ;  it  was  intolerable  to  have  her  for  ever 
trying  to  wait  on  him.  She  was  his  willing  slave ;  and  he 
felt  the  bitter  truth  of  that  saying  which  asserts  that  the 
chain  which  ties  the  slave  to  the  master  also  ties  the  master 
to  the  slave.  He  was  tired  of  having  her  eyes  follow  him 
around  the  room  anxiously,  and  then  of  hearing  her  ask, 
"  What  are  you  looking  for,  Felix  ?  "  What  difference  did 
it  make,  he  would  ask  himself  savagely,  what  he  was  look 
ing  for:  couldn't  she  let  him  alone?  No,  apparently  not. 
And  always  when  he  left  the  house,  "  Where  are  you  going, 
Felix  ? "  .  .  .  He  had  liked  the  garret  because  it  was  so 
different  from  home.  If  his  mother  had  discovered  his 
hiding-place,  and  offered  to  clean  and  furnish  it  for  him, 

77 


78  Moon-Calf 

he  would  have  resented  her  offer  as  a  hateful  intrusion. 
But  now  that  Rose  had  done  the  same  thing,  he  was  de 
lighted.  Somehow  it  made  him  think  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 
He  sat  down  and  waited  impatiently  for  Rose  to  appear. 

She  came  at  last.     "  How  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  Fine ! "  He  did  not  say  that  it  was  like  the  Arabian 
Nights.  But  she  seemed  content  with  monosyllabic  ap 
proval.  She  sat  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  bowl,  and 
they  ate  pop-corn. 

"  Do  you  like  these  books  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Yes.     Why?" 

'*  They  were  my  mother's.  See ! "  She  opened  the 
"  Confessions  "  and  showed  him,  written  on  the  fly-leaf,  the 
name  "  Rose  Talbot." — "  That  was  her  maiden  name.  She 
was  an  actress.  She  had  a  lot  of  plays,  too,  but  my  grand 
father  burned  them  all  up." 

"  Oh,"  said  Felix.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  here  was 
a  story  which  might  be  even  more  interesting  than  the  one 
they  were  reading.  He  waited  a  moment,  and  then,  as  she 
did  not  continue,  he  took  up  the  book  and  opened  it  to  the 
place  where  they  had  left  off  yesterday.  "  Shall  I  go  on 
reading?"  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  said.  .  .  . 

That  afternoon  they  went  to  the  woods  again,  and  made 
more  plans  for  their  bonfire  supper. 


The  bonfire  supper  did  not  come  off  for  several  weeks, 
however,  and  in  the  meantime  they  met  every  day  in  the 
garret  or  in  the  wood.  In  spite  of  their  mutual  confession 
of  dislike  for  games,  they  invented  and  played  games  of 
the  most  elaborate  sort,  with  an  unabashed  childishness  — 
pretending  to  be  castaways  on  a  desert  island,  prisoners  of 
the  Indians,  magicians  and  kings  and  queens  in  the  Arabian 
Nights.  They  dramatized  these  situations  to  the  utmost, 
and  made  long  speeches  to  each  other  and  to  imaginary 
personages.  He  thought  her  quite  wonderful  in  these 


The  Hand  of  Reality  79 

games.  The  role  in  which  she  most  thrilled  him  was  as  the 
Spanish  princess,  captured  by  the  Aztecs,  and  about  to  be 
sacrificed  to  a  god  with  an  unpronounceable  name.  She 
made  a  very  long  and  beautiful  speech  to  her  tormentors, 
and  recited  some  poetry  that  she  said  was  from  a  play  of 
Shakespeare's  —  her  mother  had  taught  it  to  her  when  she 
was  a  very  little  girl.  At  the  final  moment,  just  when  she 
was  about  to  be  dragged  away  to  the  fatal  altar,  the  chief 
of  a  strange  tribe  of  wandering  Indians  who  had  come  in 
with  his  companions,  and  demanded  the  privilege  of  witnes 
sing  the  ceremony,  tore  off  his  feathered  head-dress,  and 
revealed  Captain  Dick  Newton  —  that  is  to  say,  Felix  him 
self,  who  carried  the  lady  off  to  safety,  not  without  first 
making  in  his  turn  a  long  and  defiant  speech  to  the  patient 
Aztecs.  But  they  did  not  restrict  themselves  to  speech- 
making;  that  was  only  the  fine  flower  of  their  play.  They 
ran,  climbed  trees,  wrestled,  and  waded  in  the  creek.  They 
were  happy  and  carefree  children  together.  Gradually  the 
books  took  a  secondary  place,  and  then  were  altogether 
neglected,  even  in  the  garret. 

The  garret  had  now  come  to  be  a  dancing  pavilion.  .  .  . 
Rose  had  said,  "  Oh,  it's  easy — I'll  show  you!  " — and  she 
did.  Rose  whistled  the  tune —  remarking  that  it  was  lucky 
her  grand-dad  was  deaf  —  and  taught  him  the  waltz  and 
the  two-step ;  and  with  somewhat  more  difficulty,  taught  him 
to  "  lead."  "  I  could  dance  when  I  was  hardly  out  of  the 
cradle,"  she  said. 

3 

Finally  the  great  night  came.  Felix  had  made  an  in 
genious  contrivance  out  of  an  iron  barrel-hoop,  for  hanging 
the  pail  of  coffee  over  the  fire,  and  had  filed  some  lengths  of 
wire  to  serve  as  spits  for  broiling  the  meat.  He  secretly 
sliced  and  buttered  two  loaves  of  his  mother's  bread.  Rose 
had  brought  a  large  piece  of  steak  and  some  potatoes,  and 
each  of  them  had  quantities  of  matches.  A  vast  amount  of 
firewood  had  been  previously  collected,  and  all  was  ready 


8o  Moon-Calf 

for  the  great  event.  They  met  at  the  end  of  the  lot,  and 
whispering  excitedly,  made  their  way  to  the  wood. 

Everything  went  well.  The  bonfire  blazed  and  roared, 
the  coffee  bubbled,  and  the  bread  and  meat  tasted  as  never 
did  bread  and  meat  before.  It  is  true,  the  potatoes  refused 
to  roast,  but  who  cared?  It  grew  dark,  and  a  few  stars 
came  out.  They  laughed  and  sang  in  the  exhilaration  of 
their  escape.  Rose  put  on  his  hat,  rakishly,  and  he  stuck  be 
hind  his  ear  a  flower  which  she  had  worn.  A  cool  breeze 
came  up,  and  they  crept  close  together  for  warmth,  and 
wrapped  themselves  in  the  heavy  shawl  she  had  brought. 
Hours  had  passed.  It  must  be  dreadfully  late.  They  were 
silent,  regretting  that  this  must  all  presently  come  to  an 
end. 

"  I  don't  want  to  go  home,"  said  Rose  in  a  muffled  tone, 
her  head  on  his  shoulder. 

"  I  don't  either,"  he  whispered. 

"  Let's  stay  here  all  night,"  she  said  suddenly. 

"  Won't  your  grandfather  be  worried  about  you  ?  " 

"  Worried  ?  "  She  considered.  "  Not  really  worried. 
Angry,  perhaps.  He  gets  dreadfully  angry  over  little 
things.  .  .  ."  Her  voice  changed  to  its  play-acting  tone, 
and  she  murmured  against  his  ear  the  words  he  had  heard 
from  her  lips  on  their  first  visit  to  these  woods  : 

"Nothing  but  thunder!    Merciful  Heaven, 
Thou  rather  with  thy  sharp  and  sulphurous  bolt 
Split'st  the  unwedgeable  and  gnarled  oak 
Than  the  soft  myrtle:  but  man,  proud  man, 
Dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority, 
Most  ignorant  of  what  he's  most  assured, 
His  glassy  essence,  like  an  angry  ape, 
Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels 


She  laughed.     "  Let  him  be  angry  !  "  she  concluded. 

"  All  right,"  said  Felix,  and  drew  her  closer  to  him. 
They  lay,  silently,  with  wide-open  eyes,  staring  up  at  the 
friendly  stars.  It  seemed  to  Felix  that  this  was  the  happiest 
hour  of  his  life. 


The  Hand  of  Reality  81 

'*  This  is  wonderful,"  he  whispered. 

"  Yes,"  she  breathed.     "  Wonderful !  " 

They  were  too  happy  to  go  to  sleep.  Nevertheless,  at 
last  they  slept,  and  awakened  chill  and  stiff,  a  little  before 
dawn.  They  laughed  cheerfully,  each  secretly  rather 
frightened  at  their  daring.  What  might  their  folks  be  think 
ing  had  happened  to  them  ? 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  Felix,  half  aloud. 

"  I  don't  care  either,"  she  said,  and  suddenly  put  her  arms 
about  him  and  kissed  him,  on  the  mouth,  a  queer  little  kiss 
that  began  fiercely  and  ended  abruptly  in  a  laugh. 

"  Let's  just  leave  these  things  here,  and  get  them  tomor 
row,"  she  said.  *'  We  must  hurry  home." 

"All  right." 

She  took  his  arm,  and  they  started.  They  stumbled  over 
a  root  and  fell,  and  picked  themselves  up,  giggling. 

"  I  like  you,  Felix,"  she  whispered  as  they  parted  in 
front  of  the  house. 


Felix's  mother  had  sat  up  waiting  for  him,  and  fallen 
asleep  in  the  rocking-chair,  her  head  drooping  to  one  side 
comically,  and  her  glasses  hanging  by  one  ear.  Felix  smiled 
grimly,  and  crept  silently  up  the  stairs  and  into  bed.  She 
would  not  know  when  he  had  come  in,  and  he  could  make 
up  some  story  to  account  for  his  lateness.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Fay  proved  to  be  easily  managed.  But  perhaps  old 
Mr.  Henderson  was  more  suspicious,  for  Rose  did  not  come 
to  the  garret  nor  the  wood  next  day.  At  night  the  old  man 
prayed  for  an  hour;  and  Rose,  after  repeating  her  short 
prayer  in  a  defiant  voice,  did  not  bid  her  grandfather 
"  Sweet  dreams."  The  next  day,  too,  there  was  no  sign 
of  her,  and  Felix  had  begun  to  wonder  how  he  could  find 
out  what  had  happened,  when,  on  the  third  day,  the  door  of 
the  garret  opened,  and  Rose,  half-dressed,  with  a  shawl 
thrown  around  her,  slipped  in. 

"  I've  only  a  moment,"  she  said  pantingly.     "  My  grand- 


82  Moon-Calf 

father  is  keeping  watch  of  me.  I'm  going  to  be  sent  away. 
It's  because  of  my  mother." 

"I  don't  understand,"  he  said.     "  What's  happened?" 

"  I  tell  you,"  she  said,  "  I'm  going  to  be  sent  away  —  in 
the  morning.  I  can't  explain  to  you  now.  Can  you  come 
here  tonight  —  after  every  one's  in  bed  ?  " 

"  I  guess  so,"  he  said. 

"  All  right.  I'll  tell  you  then.  Be  sure  and  come.  My 
grandfather  hasn't  found  out  about  this  place  yet. —  I  must 
go  back  now."  But  she  hesitated,  looked  at  him  question- 
ingly,  and  then  came  swiftly  and  put  her  arms  about  him. 

"  Kiss  me,  Felix." 

He  kissed  her,  and  she  clung  to  him.  "  You  can  do  a  lot 
for  me  —  if  you  really  want  to,"  she  murmured.  Then 
quickly  she  released  herself  and  ran  to  the  door.  "  To 
night,"  she  said,  and  vanished. 


Very  much  perturbed,  Felix  made  his  exit  from  the  garret 
and  from  the  house.  Full  of  pity  for  the  girl,  who  was 
apparently  being  so  severely  punished  for  her  escapade,  he 
planned  dire  revenges  and  impossible  rescues,  as  he  wan 
dered  about  the  streets.  It  would  serve  the  old  man  right 
if  they  ran  away  together!  He  was  intent  upon  this  fan 
tasy  when,  late  in  the  afternoon,  he  ran  into  a  school- fellow, 
the  same  Hubert  who  had  once  so  tormented  him,  and  whose 
tooth  he  had  knocked  out. 

"  Say,"  said  Hubert,  stopping  him  and  confronting  him 
with  a  peculiar  grin,  "  what  do  you  know  about  that  Hen 
derson  girl ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Felix  bewilderedly. 

"  Why,  you  live  in  the  old  man's  house,  don't  you  ?  " 

"Yes  — what  about  it?" 

"  I'm  asking  you.  I  supposed  you  might  have  some  idea 
who  the  guy  is." 

"The  guy?" 


The  Hand  of  Reality  83 

"  The  man,  you  know.  The  man  she's  been  carrying  on 
with.  The  man  everybody's  looking  for." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about !  " 

"You  don't?  Oh,  well  —  I  might  have  known!  You, 
with  your  nose  always  stuck  in  a  book!  Of  course  you 
wouldn't  know  what  was  going  on  in  the  same  house ! " 

"What  is  it?    Tell  me!" 

Hubert  told  him,  in  words  that  were  like  a  storm  beating 
about  his  ears.  .  .  .  The  girl  had  been  carrying  on  a  love- 
affair  with  some  man,  and  her  grandfather  had  found  out 
about  it,  and  come  to  Hubert's  father,  who  was  the  district 
attorney.  .  .  .  Felix  was  staggered.  It  was  not  so  much 
that  he  doubted  the  tale,  as  that  it  seemed  to  be  another 
Rose  Henderson,  some  girl  that  he  did  not  know,  who  was 
being  spoken  of  this  way.  .  .  . 

"  But  they  don't  know  who  the  man  is  —  that's  the 
trouble.  And  the  girl  won't  tell.  The  way  the  old  man 
got  on  to  it  was  this.  She  stayed  out  all  night,  and  wouldn't 
tell  where  she  had  been,  so  the  next  day  the  old  man  fol 
lowed  her,  and  found  the  place  in  the  woods  where  the 
two  of  them  had  slept."  ...  A  dizzy  light  began  to  break 
upon  Felix's  mind.  He  tried  to  listen  to  what  followed. 
".  .  .  found  her  hair-ribbon  there  .  .  .  she  wouldn't  tell 
.  .  .  going  to  send  her  away  .  .  .  think  they  were  planning 
to  elope.  .  .  ." 

The  dizziness  passed,  and  he  heard  the  next  sentence 
clearly.  "  The  girl  comes  naturally  enough  by  it,  my  father 
says.  Her  mother  was  just  like  that,  you  know." 

Felix  managed  to  ask :  "  Her  mother  —  what  do  you 
mean?" 

"  Her  mother  —  oh,  she  was  an  actress  that  the  old  man's 
son  picked  up  somewhere.  She  ran  away  from  her  hus 
band,  and  went  back  on  the  stage.  He  brought  her  back 
home,  and  she  ran  away  again,  with  some  man.  Couldn't 
let  the  men  alone.  Then  she  got  sick,  and  brought  her  kid 
back  to  the  old  man's  place,  and  died  there.  The  old  man 
hated  her,  but  he  took  the  kid  to  raise.  He  never  sent  her 


84  Moon-Calf 

to  school,  because  of  the  talk. —  Oh,  yes,  they  say  the  old 
man's  son  committed  suicide  on  account  of  her.  So  you  see 
she  was  a  bad  lot.  And  this  girl  Rose  is  another  one  just 
like  her.  The  old  man  thought  he  was  looking  after  her 
pretty  sharp,  but  she  fooled  him ! " 

Felix  did  not  hear  any  more  except,  as  from  a  distance, 
the  sneering  phrase,  "  you  with  your  nose  stuck  in  a  book !  " 
.  .  .  He  stumbled  away,  sick  with  the  helplessness  of  a 
child  whose  dream  has  been  spoiled.  He  had  lost  his  dream 
playmate,  for  he  could  no  longer  recognize  her  in  the  figure 
which  was  the  centre  of  this  coil  of  mortal  passions ;  and  he 
hated  with  a  sick  loathing  the  world  which  had  taken  her 
from  him_with  its  huge,  ugly,  unclean,  destroying  hand.  He 
wanted  to  go  away  —  away  —  anywhere  —  out  of  the  reach 
of  that  horrible  hand.  .  .  . 

And  then,  with  a  terrifying  flash  of  realization,  he  saw 
that  he  could  not  go  away.  He  must  face  reality  in  all  its 
ugliness.  He  must  tell  Rose's  grandfather  the  truth.  For 
a  moment  after  that  idea  came,  the  whole  situation  seemed 
clear  and  simple;  when  he  had  told  the  truth,  none  of  these 
horrible  uglinesses  would  exist  —  the  world  would  be  as  it 
was  before.  But  the  next  instant  the  idea  froze  him  with 
fear.  "  No,  I  can't,"  he  cried  aloud.  No,  he  could  not 
wipe  out  the  past,  and  the  thoughts  and  suspicions  in  every 
body's  mind,  with  a  few  words ;  no,  if  he  faced  those  things, 
it  would  be  he  who  would  be  overwhelmed.  "  I  can't,"  he 
cried,  running  blindly  along  the  street.  "  No,  no !  "  .  .  . 

He  thought  he  was  running  away ;  but  he  suddenly  found 
himself  on  the  Henderson  porch,  staring  at  the  door.  It 
was  so  ugly  and  so  useless;  he  could  not  lift  his  hand  to 
knock.  But  he  thought  for  a  moment  of  Rose,  his  dream- 
playmate,  and  reached  up  to  lift  the  knocker.  It  fell,  and 
the  nightmare  of  reality  became  unutterably  grotesque. 

6 

A  harsh  voice  cried,  "  Come  in !  "  and  Felix  entered, 
walking  with  unsteady  knees  across  to  where  old  Mr.  Hen- 


The  Hand  of  Reality  85 

derson  sat  in  a  big  rocking  chair,  with  a  great  Bible  on  his 
lap.  The  old  man  stared  up  at  him. 

Felix  tried  to  speak,  but  no  sounds  came  from  his  dry 
throat.  The  old  man  made  an  impatient  movement,  and 
boomed,  "  Well  ?" 

Then  Felix  heard  himself  saying, 

"Where  is  she?" 

"  Who  ?  "  growled  the  old  man. 

"  Rose !  " 

"  She's  locked  in  her  room  upstairs,"  said  the  old  man. 
"  And  what  business  is  that  of  yours?  " 

"  Mr.  Henderson/'  said  Felix,  "I  —  I  was  in  the  woods 
with  her  that  night." 

The  old  man  stared,  stooped,  and  lifted  a  heavy  cane  that 
lay  beside  his  chair.  He  rose  slowly,  tremblingly,  towering 
over  the  boy  with  upraised  cane. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  But/'  said  Felix,  "  it  isn't  true  — " 

'*  What  isn't  true  ?  "  growled  the  old  man,  with  cane  wav 
ering  in  the  air. 

"We  made  a  bonfire  and  went  to  sleep  beside  it.  That 
was  all." 

The  cane  lowered.  "  Come  here.  Why,  you're  just  a 
child !  "  The  old  man  sank  down  in  his  chair,  and  covered 
his  face  with  his  hands.  "  The  child  of  a  neighbour !  "  he 
groaned. 

"  But  —  I  tell  you  -—"  began  Felix. 

"  I'll  believe  you,  child,"  said  the  old  man  softly. 

There  was  a  long  silence,  and  then  the  old  man  turned 
upon  him.  "  Do  you  pray  ?  "  he  asked  fiercely. 

•'  Y-yes,"  said  Felix. 

"  Then  get  down  on  your  knees  tonight  and  thank  God 
that  your  soul  has  been  saved  alive  out  of  hell-fire !  "  He 
began  groaning  again,  and  muttering,  *'  To  tempt  a  child ! 
To  tempt  a  child !  Oh,  God !  " 

"But— "  said  Felix. 

"  Tell  me,  my  child.     Tell  me,  and  do  not  speak  against 


86  Moon-Calf 

the  truth.  Did  not  that  woman's  daughter  seek  to  allure 
you  with  idolatrous  and  heathenish  arts  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Felix,  wondering  what  the  old  man  meant 

He  fixed  Felix  with  his  fierce  eyes.  "  The  arts  of  mum 
mery  and  play-acting  and  —  and  dancing." 

"Oh  — that,  yes.     But—" 

The  old  man  rose.  "  Come  over  here,"  and  he  walked 
slowly  over  to  a  table,  and  took  out  from  a  drawer  some 
objects  which  Felix  recognized.  They  were  a  box  of  rouge, 
another  of  cold  cream,  a  rabbit's-foot  powder-puff,  and  a 
lipstick.  Rose  had  brought  them  out  to  the  wood  with  her 
once,  and  showed  him  how  people  "  make-up  "  for  the  stage. 
They  had  been  her  mother's,  she  said.  .  .  .  She  had  brought 
them  along  on  their  bonfire  night,  too,  but  had  not  used 
them. 

"Did  you  ever  see  those  things  before?*' 

"  Y-yes,"  said  Felix.     "  But  — " 

"  Enough  !  "  The  old  man  regarded  him  gravely.  "  You 
are  too  young  to  understand.  Thank  God  for  that !  "  He 
pointed  to  the  door.  "  Go,"  he  said. 

Felix  had  got  to  the  door  when  the  old  man  called  him 
back.  "  Come  here,  my  child,"  he  said  gently.  Wondering, 
Felix  came.  "  Kneel  down  here."  Felix  knelt,  and  the  old 
man  put  a  hand  on  his  head.  *'  You  must  not  be  sorry  for 
her,"  he  said.  "  She  is  a  shameless  harlot  —  like  her  mother. 
I  had  feared  it," — his  head  shook  to  and  fro  and  tears  be 
gan  to  run  down  his  cheeks  and  his  voice  to  choke  with 
sobs  — "  I  had  feared  it  all  these  years  —  and  prayed  that 
it  might  not  be  —  but  by  the  Power  of  Hell  —  it  was  even 
so.  She  tempted  you.  A  child.  Oh,  my  God !  — " 

Felix  stumbled  to  his  feet  and  ran  out  of  the  room,  while 
the  old  man  sobbed  and  mumbled  insanely  on. 

7 

Felix  wandered  about  the  streets  till  nightfall.  His 
mother  saved  his  supper  for  him,  but  he  could  not  eat. 
"  You  aren't  well,  Felix,"  she  said  anxiously.  "  I'm  afraid 


The  Hand  of  Reality  87 

you  are  reading  too  much."     He  escaped  to  his  room. 

He  was  to  meet  Rose  in  the  garret  that  night.  He  threw 
himself,  without  undressing,  on  the  bed,  and  beat  off 
strange,  wild,  foolish  thoughts.  .  .  . 

What  was  she  going  to  tell  him  tonight  ?  Was  she  going 
to  ask  him  to  run  away  with  her  ?  And  why  should  he  not  ? 
.  .  .  Yet  she  was  no  longer  the  dream-playmate  with  whom 
he  had  proposed  in  fancy  to  run  away,  only  that  afternoon. 
She  had  changed.  He  did  not  quite  trust  her.  Indeed,  he 
feared  her.  What  had  she  been  thinking  of  him?  Had 
she  thought  him  a  fool,  that  he  never  kissed  her?  It  was 
as  if  a  voice  whispered  to  him,  "  Hubert  was  right  —  you 
don't  see  anything,  you  with  your  nose  always  in  a  book !  " 
.  .  .  What  would  it  be  like  if  they  ran  away  together?  He 
braced  himself  to  meet  that  adventure;  and  thus,  over 
wrought  and  fearful,  fell  asleep.  And  as  he  lay  there 
asleep  a  dream  came  to  him.  .  .  . 

It  seemed  that  he  heard  her  step  above,  and  that  he  climbed 
to  meet  her.  He  found  her  lying  on  the  pillows,  half-cov 
ered  by  her  shawl  only,  and  her  cheeks  and  lips  were  bright 
red  from  the  little  boxes,  and  she  held  out  her  naked  arms 
to  him  with  a  strange  laugh.  In  his  dream  he  said,  "  They 
told  me  you  were  wicked."  And  she  smiled  mysteriously, 
and  said,  "  I  don't  care.  I  am  my  mother's  daughter.  Kiss 
me,  Felix!" 

He  awoke. 

Then,  as  he  lay  there,  he  heard  her  step  sound  lightly  on 
the  floor  above.  She  crossed  to  the  rug,  and  sat  down,  and 
waited.  Felix  rose,  and  then  fell  back  trembling.  He  was 
afraid. 

Was  the  dream  real?  Or  was  she  only  a  lonely  child 
like  himself,  waiting  for  her  playmate,  to  bid  him  good 
bye  ?  He  did  not  know.  He  only  knew  that  he  was  afraid. 

He  buried  his  head  in  the  pillow,  and  wept  silently.  The 
girl  waited  in  the  lonely  darkness  for  a  long  time,  and  then 
he  heard  her  firm  proud  step  sound  on  the  floor.  She  knew 
that  he  had  failed  her.  She  was  going  back  to  her  room. 


88  Moon-Calf 

The  door  of  the  garret  closed.  Felix  lay  awake  in  shame 
and  rage  till  morning. 

Felix  never  saw  her  again,  and  never  entered  the  garret 
or  went  to  the  wood  where  they  had  played.  .  .  . 

The  Fays  moved  again,  and  school  re-opened,  and  Felix 
read  books,  and  forgot.  And  the  next  spring  he  heard, 
quite  casually,  that  Rose  Henderson  had  married  a  young 
farmer. 


VIII  The  End  of  Maple 


BOTH  the  boys  were  in  Vickley  now;  first  Jim  had 
gone,  then  Ed.     And  then  Mr.   Fay  lost  his  job 
again.     It  seemed  useless  for  him  to  attempt  to  earn 
a  living  here  in  Maple.     The  boys  had  written,  urging  him 
to  come  to  Vickley,  and  bring  the  rest  of  the  family. 
So  it  was  decided  to  leave  Maple. 

Felix  was  glad.  Not  because  it  meant  going  to  Vickley, 
but  because  it  meant  leaving  the  scene  of  innumerable  pains 
and  humiliations.  He  felt  that  in  going  he  would  leave 
behind  him  his  childhood,  with  all  its  awkwardness  and 
ignorance.  .  .  . 

2 

They  were  living  on  the  outskirts  of  Maple  in  one  corner 
of  a  fine  old  house  gone  to  ruin,  that  stood  back  in  a  great 
unkept  lawn  planted  with  fir  trees.  They  shared  the  house 
with  its  owner,  a  fat  and  feeble  old  woman  who  smoked  a 
pipe. 

The  rooms  of  the  old  house  were  almost  stripped  bare  of 
furniture,  the  paper  on  the  walls  was  ready  to  fall,  the 
carpets  were  in  rags.  The  rent  which  Felix's  family  paid 
was  apparently  the  old  woman's  only  income.  She  would 
potter  slowly  about  the  kitchen,  groaning  as  she  got  herself 
a  meal  on  her  little  gasoline  stove,  and  then  take  herself 
slowly  back  to  the  great  parlour,  sink  into  her  rocking  chair, 
and  take  up  her  pipe.  She  liked  to  have  Felix  about  the 
place,  and  sometimes  she  would  ask  him  to  write  letters  for 
her. 

The  letters  were  always  to  a  daughter  who  lived  in 
Chicago.  She  wanted  her  daughter  to  come  home.  The 

89 


go  Moon-Calf 

old  woman  would  dictate  a  sentence  about  her  health,  and 
then  sit  smoking  and  thinking  a  long  time ;  then  a  sentence 
about  the  weather,  and  how  it  affected  her  joints,  and  an 
other  long  period  of  smoking.  Always  she  ended:  "If  I 
ever  needed  you,  I  need  you  now." 

Once  her  nephew  came  to  stay  with  her  for  a  while.  He 
was  a  cripple,  and  was  sent  from  one  to  another  among  his 
relations.  His  name  was  Dick.  He  was  twenty-one,  and 
he  could  do  nothing  but  whittle;  there  was  something  the 
matter  with  his  back.  "  Get  me  that  stick  there,"  he  would 
say  to  Felix  as  they  sat  together  on  the  wide  porch.  Felix 
would  bring  him  a  piece  of  soft  wood.  Dick  would  bend  his 
brown  head  over  it,  and  his  face,  which  was  thin  and 
strained,  would  become  composed  and  beautiful  as  he 
worked.  Wh#n  he  finished,  it  was  a  turtle  or  a  mouse  or 
a  bird  —  delicate  and  sure  in  its  carved  contours.  Then, 
after  Felix  had  admired  and  handled  it  for  a  while,  he 
would  say,  "  Give  it  back ! "  And  then  he  would  destroy 
it.  He  would  take  his  knife  and  chip  off  a  bit  here  and 
there,  his  face  lighted  with  an  ugly,  evil  pleasure,  as  if  he 
were  tormenting  a  live  thing.  When  at  last  it  was  only 
barely  recognizable  as  the  thing  it  had  been,  he  would  toss  it 
carelessly  out  into  the  grass. 

"  Why  do  you  do  that  ?  "  Felix  would  ask  curiously. 

"  I'm  playing  that  I'm  God,"  he  would  say,  and  laugh 
heartily,  as  though  it  were  the  greatest  joke  in  the  world. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  Felix  would  persist.  "I  don't 
understand." 

"  You  will  some  day,"  Dick  would  reply,  and  then  he 
would  whistle  beautiful  melodies. 

Dick  went  away,  and  when  Felix  asked  the  old  woman 
about  him  a  month  later,  she  told  him  Dick  was  dead. 

3 

Just  before  the  family  left  Maple,  a  young  man  came  to 
paper  their  corner  of  the  house  for  the  new  tenants.  Thir 
teen-year-old  Felix  hung  about  and  watched  him  paste  the 


The  End  of  Maple  91 

ugly  rose-trellised  strips  of  paper  on  the  wall.  The  young 
man  would  stand  beside  his  pasting-board  between  strips, 
light  a  cigarette,  cross  his  legs,  and  talk.  He  was  a  thin, 
pimply-faced  youth,  and  his  voice  was  a  squeaky,  scurrying 
sound,  like  rats  scampering  across  a  garret-floor  in  the 
dark.  Felix  had  told  him  they  were  going  to  Vickley. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  in  his  ratty  voice,  "  you'll  go  to  Vickley. 
/  went  to  St.  Looey.  Never  been  to  a  city  before,  I  hadn't. 
Never  been  to  a  dance  till  I  was  seventeen.  Never  had  a 
girl  wink  at  me.  Yes,  7  went.  First  thing  I  did  was  to 
explore  the  Mysteries  of  the  Great  City.  So  will  you.  And 
let  me  tell  you,  those  are  some  mysteries !  "  He  winked 
engagingly,  and  prepared  to  expatiate  upon  them. 

But  Felix  suddenly  remembered  something  he  had  in 
tended  to  do  before  he  left  this  house.  Leaving  the  paper- 
hanger,  he  burst  in  upon  the  old  woman  who  was  quietly 
smoking  her  pipe  in  the  big  arm-chair  in  her  parlour. 

"  You  told  me  sometime  I  could  look  upstairs  for  books," 
he  said  shyly. 

She  nodded,  as  though  she  did  not  realize  what  an  im 
portant  occasion  this  was.  He  had  more  than  once  asked 
boldly  for  permission  to  look,  but  she  had  always  vaguely 
put  him  off.  Now  the  time  had  come  when,  if  ever,  it  must 
be  done :  they  were  taking  the  train  at  three  o'clock.  He  had 
been  very  much  afraid  she  might  still  refuse.  Upon  her 
nod,  he  dashed  upstairs. 

Two  great  bare  rooms,  with  not  a  sign  of  a  book.  Two 
empty  closets.  Felix  opened  the  third  with  desperation. 
There  must  be  books  hidden  away  somewhere !  Sure 
enough,  on  the  top  shelf,  a  pile  of  illustrated  weeklies,  and 
a  great  thick  book  bound  in  red  cloth.  Felix  pulled  it  down 
and  examined  it. 

"  Hill's  Manual,"  it  was  called,  but  that  was  not  the  whole 
title.  It  was  further,  "  A  Compendium  of  Useful  Knowl 
edge;  A  Complete  Reference  Work;  Containing — "  Oh,  it 
contained  everything  —  it  told  how  to  build  a  house  and  how 
to  write  a  love-letter ;  how  to  make  a  public  speech,  and  how 


92  Moon-Calf 

to  resuscitate  a  drowning  person;  how  to  keep  caterpillars 
away  from  fruit-trees  and  how  to  write  poetry  —  with  illus 
trations,  examples,  and  complete  explanations.  It  was,  as 
the  title  page  modestly  said,  "  A  Library  in  One  Book." 

Felix  sat  on  the  floor  with  it  a  long  time,  desiring  it,  and 
wondering  if  the  old  woman  would  part  with  it.  At  length, 
unable  to  endure  the  suspense,  he  hurried  downstairs, 
showed  it  to  her,  and  asked  fearfully,  "  Can  I  have  it?" 

The  old  woman  glanced  at  it  and  nodded  again.  Felix 
went  out  before  she  could  change  her  mind,  and  sat  down 
on  the  doorstep,  turning  the  pages  and  gloating  over  it. 

The  paper-hanging  youth  paused  in  his  labours  and  lit  a 
cigarette  unnoticed.  He  was  accustomed  to  have  his  eluci 
dations  of  the  mysteries  of  hectic  metropolitan  life  attended 
to  with  the  utmost  eagerness  and  respect  by  the  adolescent 
minds  with  which  he  came  in  contact  in  the  course  of  his 
labours  in  the  town.  He  cleared  his  throat  promisingly,  but 
Felix  did  not  look  up.  Here  in  the  back  of  the  book  was 
a  description  of  the  different  kinds  of  metre,  a  mystery 
which  Felix,  in  his  occasional  attempts  at  rhyme,  had  pon 
dered  to  himself.  Here  it  was  all  explained  —  iambics, 
trochees,  dactyls,  spondees,  anapests.  .  .  . 

"  As  I  say,"  resumed  the  paper-hanging  youth,  "  you 
don't  know  anything  at  all  about  life.  And  you've  got  to 
learn,  sooner  or  later." 

But  Felix,  sitting  in  the  doorway,  absorbed  in  the  mys 
teries  of  iambic  pentameter,  did  not  hear. 


Book  Two 
Vickley 


IX  A  Family 


VICKLEY  was  a  city  of  thirty  thousand  inhabitants, 
undistinguished  except  for  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
largest  town  in  a  radius  of  five  counties.     It  was 
the  stepmother  city  of  the  surrounding  region,  unlovely  and 
unloved.     Ambitious    boys    dreamed    of    Chicago,    which 
blazed  and  roared  to  the  northeast;  but  they  came  to  Vick- 
ley. 

Jim  had  come ;  he  too  had  dreamed  of  Chicago,  and  made 
one  brief,  reckless  and  defeated  invasion  of  it ;  then  he  had 
returned  to  be  one  of  the  sullen  stepchildren  of  Vickley. 
Once  again  he  had  tried  to  escape  ;  he  belonged  to  the  militia, 
and  when  the  Spanish  War  broke  out  he  had  joined  the 
army  to  go  to  Cuba.  The  regiment  had  gone  to  a  fever- 
ridden  camp  in  Florida,  whence  he  was  sent  home  to  Maple 
twisted  and  bent  with  rheumatism.  But  he  could  not  stay ; 
hating  Vickley,  he  had  returned  to  it  and  to  running  a 
machine  which  took  off,  piece  by  piece,  parts  of  five  fingers 
and  thumbs. 

The  boys,  after  Ed  came,  lived  in  one  room  in  a  boarding 
house.  Ed  had  a  job  in  the  wagon  works,  painting  wheels 
a  monotonous  carmine;  on  Sundays  he  sat  trying  to  draw. 
One  of  his  drawings,  a  picture  of  a  dying  hawk  falling 
through  the  air,  hung  on  the  wall ;  he  had  done  it  when  he 
first  came,  a  memory  of  his  boyhood  in  Maple.  He  had 
done  nothing  since  then  but  copy  things,  with  a  tired  eye 
and  a  stiff  hand,  out  of  the  art  supplement  of  the  Sunday 
paper.  Every  night  before  he  went  to  bed  he  straightened 
that  picture  of  the  hawk ;  the  girl  who  cleaned  up  the  room 
invariably  knocked  it  askew  with  her  duster,  and  every 

95 


96  Moon-Calf 

night  he  regarded  its  crookedness  with  a  jealous  eye.  One 
day  he  took  it  down  and  gave  it  to  a  girl,  and  thereafter 
spent  his  Sundays  away  from  the  room  and  drew  no  more. 
Then  Mr.  Fay  and  the  rest  of  the  family  came,  to  start 
life  anew  in  Vickley. 


The  new  home  of  the  Fays  was  one  half  of  a  little  double- 
house  in  Mulberry  Street  on  the  edge  of  a  cheap  residence 
district,  flanked  by  a  gully  and  a  ragged  bluff,  and  beyond 
that  the  Mississippi.  A  tiny  little  house,  it  held  with  diffi 
culty  the  household  goods  accumulated  by  the  Fays  in  half 
a  lifetime  —  old  wooden  bedsteads,  moth-eaten  couches, 
battered  bureaus,  rickety  chairs  with  cane  seats  repaired 
with  heavy  twine,  ancient  stoves,  an  extension  table  with 
many  "  leaves,"  the  family  portraits  *'  enlarged  "  in  crayon, 
a  trunkful  of  books  including  the  Bible,  a  Family  Dis 
pensary  and  all  the  school  books  ever  used  by  the  younger 
Fays,  and  a  vast  quantity  of  rags,  which  Mrs.  Fay  intended 
to  make  into  a  rag  carpet. 

And  finally  there  was  the  what-not,  symbol  of  the  artistic 
aspirations  of  the  Fay  family  —  a  series  of  little  triangular 
shelves  tied  together  with  string  and  made  to  hang  in  a  cor 
ner  of  the  parlour ;  its  front  decorated  with  stiff  brown  paper 
•  folded  so  that  it  resembled  the  scales  of  an  ichthyosaurus, 
and  painted  over  with  shiny  black ;  loaded  with  family  photo 
graphs,  coloured  fans,  ornamental  cups  and  saucers,  china 
shepherdesses,  curiously  shaped  flasks  which  had  once  con 
tained  perfume  and  were  still  preserved  as  objects  of  art ; 
all  manner  of  pathetic  trinkets  accumulated  by  Mrs.  Fay  for 
parlour  decoration  in  the  odd  moments  of  a  lifetime  spent  in 
the  kitchen.  At  first  respected  and  admired  by  all,  it  had 
been  neglected  for  years,  with  none  but  Mrs.  Fay  to  do  it 
reverence.  Gradually  it  had  become  a  sort  of  filing  cabinet 
for  grocery  bills,  rent  receipts,  letters  from  relatives,  and  old 
copies  of  the  Maple  Adage.  Its  chief  function  was  to  gather 
and  preserve  the  dust  of  years. 


.     A  Family  97 

With  these  accustomed  articles  disposed  about  the  five 
little  rooms,  the  Mulberry  Street  house  took  on  the  sem 
blance  of  all  the  homes  ever  inhabited  by  the  Fays. 

All  was  as  before,  and  yet  all  was  different.  In  Maple  it 
had  been  possible  to  pretend  that  the  family  poverty  was 
only  a  temporary  accident.  There  were  memories  of  pros 
perity  ;  and  rich  or  poor,  the  family  was  a  part  of  the  town 
life.  Mr.  Fay  had  served  on  Fourth  of  July  celebration 
committees,  and  helped  get  up  the  Republican  rallies.  Jim 
had  been  drum-major  of  the  Junior  Republican  band. 
Everybody  had  been  interested  in  Ed,  the  house-painter 
who  wanted  to  be  an  artist.  Old  friends  of  Mrs.  Fay 
still  came  from  the  ends  of  town  to  help  her  make  a  quilt, 
as  in  the  old  days  of  "  quilting-bees."  But  in  Vickley  they 
were  lost.  Nobody  knew  them  or  cared  about  them.  The 
boys  were  so  much  labour  to  be  used  up  ruthlessly  in  shops 
and  factories.  Ed,  who  unconsciously  put  something  of  an 
artist  spirit  into  the  painting  of  wagon  wheels,  was  outdis 
tanced  in  the  speeded  work  of  the  Vickley  factory :  "  a 
good  workman,  but  slow  " —  and  his  wages  showed  it.  Jim 
was  only  holding  his  job  on  sheer  nerve  and  desperation. 
And  Mr.  Fay  was  a  mere  useless  old  man.  He  dyed  his 
moustache  and  demanded  a  job,  but  nobody  was  fooled. 

The  fact  that  he  could  not  get  work  as  a  butcher  never 
ceased  to  puzzle  Mr.  Fay,  for  he  knew  himself  to  be  a  better 
butcher  than  any  of  the  young  snips  that  he  saw  behind  the 
marble  counters  in  Vickley.  He  did  once  get  a  job  as  a 
bartender,  but  he  had  to  hold  it,  as  it  were  by  stealth,  for 
the  fraternal  insurance  society  to  which  he  belonged  vir 
tuously  forbade  such  employment,  and  he  dared  not  lose 
the  insurance  on  which  he  had  paid  premiums  so  long. 
That  danger  was  ended  by  a  dispute  with  the  bartender. 
Thus  he  was  reduced  for  the  most  part  to  washing  the 
dishes  at  home  —  an  ironic  destiny. 

Mr.  Fay  still  had  something  of  jauntiness  in  his  manner, 
and  he  carried  his  small  plump  body  with  the  vestiges  of  a 
military  pride.  If  the  remembered  glories  of  his  youth 


98 


Moon-Calf 


could  not  keep  his  limbs  vigorous,  they  kept  his  tongue  sharp 
and  his  eyes  bright.  His  cheeks  were  jolly  and  his  jaw  was 
stubborn.  He  seemed  with  the  years  to  grow  more  militant 
in  his  economic  adventures  —  more  ready  to  resent  and 
revenge  the  slights  and  insults  of  his  employers.  These 
adventures  were  always  unprofitable,  except  as  material  for 
dinner-table  reminiscence. 

The  prize  story  was  the  one  about  how  he  lost  his  job  at 
the  glucose  works.  He  had  managed  to  get  work  there  nail 
ing  up  boxes  packed  with  cans  of  corn-syrup.  He  had  held 
it  a  week  and  a  half  when  the  superintendent  happened  to 
stroll  through  the  packing  room.  The  superintendent  was 
young  and  English :  manifestly  a  fool.  This  superintendent 
had  stopped  to  watch  Mr.  Fay  nail  up  a  box,  and  then  had 
said :  "  You'll  have  to  work  faster  than  that,  my  man !  " 
Mr.  Fay,  in  telling  the  story,  reproduced  the  broad  English 
a  in  "  faster,"  and  emphasized  the  preposterous  phrase, 
"  my  man  " :  and  any  one  who  heard  it  understood  why  we 
had  fought  two  wars  with  England.  Of  course  Mr.  Fay 
had  ignored  him  and  gone  on  working.  And  then  the 
young  fool  had  actually  kicked  him !  —  or  at  least  touched 
Mr.  Fay's  kneeling  body  with  the  toe  of  his  shoe.  "  Do 
you  heah  me  ?  "  he  had  asked. 

Adam  Fay,  who  had  in  his  time  defied  successfully  the 
whole  military  power  of  the  United  States  Government,  rose. 
In  front  of  him  was  a  container  marked  in  large  letters 
"  Sulphuric  Acid."  Mr.  Fay  stooped,  ladled  out  a  dipper- 
ful  of  the  liquid,  and  turned  to  the  superintendent. 

"  Do  you  know  what  this  is  ? "  demanded  Adam  Fay 
fiercely. 

"  Why,  sulphuric  acid ! "  said  the  superintendent,  looking 
frightened. 

"  Then  get  down  on  your  knees,  you  dog,"  said  Adam 
Fay,  "  or  I'll  throw  this  right  in  your  damned  insolent  face. 
And  be  quick  about  it !  " 

"And,"  Mr.  Fay  would  say  at  the  supper  table,  telling 
the  story,  "  he  got  down  on  his  knees,  I  tell  you,  quick 


A  Family- 

enough.  And  then  .  .  .  everybody  in  the  room,  you  see, 
was  looking,  and  didn't  know  what  to  make  of  it  ...  and 
then  I  put  the  dipper  up  to  my  mouth  and  drank  it  down. 
It  was  nothing  but  drinking  water.  And  damn  if  that 
Englishman  didn't  just  fall  over  backwards  and  crawl  out 
on  his  hands  and  knees." 


To  these  stories  Jim  would  listen  delightedly.  "You're 
a  winner,  dad ! "  he  would  say,  laughing ;  and  then  with  a 
sudden  harshness  his  face  would  reflect  the  pains  that  af 
flicted  his  poor  legs,  still  aching  from  the  walk  home. 

It  was  tragic  to  see  Jim  hobble  to  and  from  the  factory, 
but  he  would  not  give  up.  When  he  had  first  come  home 
from  Florida,  bent  and  twisted,  he  had  sat  about  the  house 
for  a  month,  reading  Frank  Merriwell  weeklies  and  cursing 
angrily  at  Felix  if  the  boy  bumped  against  his  chair;  and 
then  one  day  he  hobbled  down  to  the  railway  station  to  go 
back  to  Vickley  —  to  work.  "  Jim  wants  some  new  neck 
ties  !  "  Mr.  Fay  had  explained.  Was  it  the  pride  of  good 
clothes  that  kept  Jim  at  work  now,  in  spite  of  the  devil  that 
gnawed  at  his  leg-bones?  Mr.  Fay  had  said  when  Jim  en 
listed  in  the  militia,  that  it  was  for  the  neat  uniform.  The 
"  little  gentleman,"  who  had  quit  school  rather  than  wear 
patches:  who  had  been  so  proud  of  his  uniform  as  drum- 
major  of  the  Junior  Republican  band  in  Maple;  who  had 
cursed  and  bribed  and  almost  wept,  trying  to  cure  little 
Felix  of  his  slovenliness: — was  it  the  aspiration  toward 
elegance  which  had  led  him  to  that  fever-camp  in  Florida 
from  which  he  had  returned  a  cripple? 

That  aspiration  still  ruled  his  life.  After  dinner,  on 
Wednesday  and  Saturday  evenings,  he  would  dress  and  go 
down  town.  The  whole  family  had  to  assist.  During  the 
process,  the  frantic  bad  temper  of  the  chronic  invalid  would 
break  out  unrestrained.  "  God  damn  it,  give  me  that 
towel ! "  he  would  shout,  having  rubbed  soap  in  his  eyes. 
His  mother  would  stand  at  the  ironing  board,  pressing  the 


i66:  -Moon-Calf 

crease  in  his  best  trousers  to  a  new  salience  while  he  shaved 
fretfully.  Felix  polished  his  elegant  low  shoes  —  clumsily, 
Jim  assured  him.  Mr.  Fay,  with  jocular  comments,  shaved 
the  back  of  Jim's  neck. 

But  at  last,  when  he  had  adjusted  his  pearl  stickpin  in  his 
blue  silk  necktie,  and  looked  in  the  glass  to  see  that  his 
hair  was  parted  to  a  nicety  over  his  handsome  forehead, — 
then  his  suavity  returned.  Clothed  like  a  gentleman,  he 
was  the  soul  of  courtesy.  He  would  sit  for  a  while  in  the 
parlour,  conversing  with  the  family  with  an  easy  gaiety. 
Then  he  would  ask  for  his  hat  and  stick,  with  such  an  air 
that  even  Felix  was  glad  to  get  them  for  him.  And  thus, 
shaven  and  combed  and  powdered,  with  waxed  moustache, 
brilliant-surfaced  shoes,  and  trousers  creased  to  a  hairline, 
a  figure  to  admire,  he  would  leave  the  house.  So  debonair 
was  he  that  no  one  would  have  guessed  how  painfully  he 
had  limped  home.  He  strolled  down  to  hear  the  band  play, 
leaning  lightly  on  his  cherry-wood  cane. 


After  dinner,  when  Mr.  Fay  had  sat  down  to  read  the 
newspaper,  Felix  would  start  out  of  the  house.  His  mother 
would  come  running  to  the  door  and  ask,  "  Where  are  you 
going,  Felix  ?  " 

"  To  the  library !  "  he  would  reply  impatiently,  hurrying 
off.  ... 

Mrs.  Fay  would  go  back  to  the  dishpan. 

She  did  the  housework  of  the  family,  with  some  dille- 
tante  assistance  from  her  husband;  and  in  addition  she 
raised  chickens  in  the  backyard  and  sold  them  (with  great 
reluctance,  for  she  loved  them)  to  buy  school-books  for 
Felix. 

Bearing  the  brunt  of  that  losing  struggle  with  poverty, 
she  was  losing  visibly  all  that  remained  to  her  of  strength 
and  health,  but  not  all  her  spirit.  In  her  bent  form  an 
intense  weariness  seemed  to  struggle  with  a  pathetic  eager 
ness  to  serve.  At  the  table,  she  sat  nearest  the  kitchen  door, 


A  Family  161 

on  the  very  edge  of  a  tilted  chair,  so  that  she  could  rise  and 
wait  on  the  family  if  they  wanted  anything.  Five  years 
younger  than  her  husband,  she  seemed  an  old,  old  woman, 
worn  out,  used  up  in  household  drudgeries.  She  had  not 
even  the  dignity  of  age,  for  a  pair  of  crooked  brass-rimmed 
spectacles  which  she  habitually  wore  (saving  her  gold  ones 
for  grand  occasions  which  never  came),  gave  her  thin  face 
a  sadly  comic  aspect.  But  her  eyes  were  still  young ^ 
through  those  crooked  spectacles  she  looked  out  upon  a 
world  darkened  by  the  smoke  of  factories  and  haunted  by 
hopeless  debts,  with  the  same  shy,  eager,  trusting  gaze  as 
once,  long  since,  in  her  girlhood,  when  the  skies  had  been 
radiant  with  infinite  promise ;  and  still  at  heart  the  same 
foolish  girl,  she  still  with  the  same  unbounded  trust  held 
out  her  hands  to  life. 


X  Felix:  Dictator 


F 


^ELIX,  who  had  come  to  Vickley  with  the  great 
red  book  under  his  arm  which  told  how  to  do 

everything,  was  at  first  lost  in  the  alien  world 

ot  new  faces  and  strange  duties.  They  had  singing 
lessons  in  Jefferson  School,  and  Felix,  not  knowing 
how  to  sing,  had  to  open  his  mouth  and  pretend  — 
a  proceeding  toward  which  the  singing  teacher  occa 
sionally  cocked  a  suspicious  ear.  There  was  also  a  man 
ual  training  department,  in  which  Felix  astonished  his 
teacher  by  an  ability  to  draw  up  with  compass  and  T-square 
the  most  difficult  <k  plans,"  and  by  an  utter  incapacity  to 
make  the  simplest  object  with  saw  and  plane.  Aside  from 
such  things,  Felix  mixed  unnoticed  with  the  flood  of  pupils 
at  Jefferson  School,  until  early  in  the  second  year  an  inci 
dent  happened  which  brought  him,  in  a  very  curious  way, 
to  the  front. 

The  boys  of  the  twelfth  grade  wanted  to  get  up  a  base 
ball  team  to  play  against  the  boys  from  other  schools.  The 
girls,  hearing  of  this,  decided  that  they  ought  to  have  a 
basketball  team.  The  girls  spoke  to  the  teacher,  and  the 
teacher  spoke  to  the  Principal,  and  the  result  was  that  a 
meeting  of  the  twelfth  grade  was  called  one  afternoon. 
The  Principal  was  present,  and  constituted  himself  the  chair 
man.  He  was  a  plump  little  man  with  an  air  of  fraterni 
zation  toward  the  older  pupils  which  deceived  himself.  He 
had  no  idea  how  this  formal  meeting  embarrassed  them. 

But  it  did  not  embarrass  Felix.  For  the  first  time  since 
he  had  first  come  to  Jefferson  School,  he  felt  at  home.  He 
knew  all  about  meetings.  He  had  read  Hill's  Manual  on 

102 


Felix:  Dictator  103 

the  subject.  So  when  no  one  responded  to  the  Principal's 
invitation  to  get  up  and  speak,  he  rose  unabashed  and  talked 
for  five  minutes.  He  spoke  of  the  desirability  of  forming  a 
permanent  organization,  to  express  the  spirit  of  Jefferson 
School,  to  enable  them  to  get  better  acquainted  with  each 
other,  and  to  develop  their  physical  and  mental  "  potentiali 
ties."  The  roomful  of  boys  and  girls  listened  in  awed 
silence.  They  were  not  aware  that  Jefferson  School  had 
a  spirit  to  express,  they  all,  except  Felix,  knew  each  other 
quite  well,  they  had  developed  painfully  and  unwillingly  all 
the  potentialities  they  thought  they  could  stand.  They  only 
wanted  to  play  baseball  and  basketball.  Nevertheless,  after 
their  first  shock  of  seeing  some  one  do  something  that  wasn't 
done,  namely,  get  up  and  make  a  speech,  they  felt  con 
strained  to  admire  and  applaud  his  nerve.  The  Principal 
listened  with  real  enthusiasm,  and  took  Felix  at  his  word 
as  the  spokesman  of  the  meeting.  And  when  Felix  duly 
finished  by  moving  that  a  committee  be  appointed  by  the 
chair  to  draft  the  Constitution  and  By-laws  of  the  society, 
he  made  Felix  chairman  of  the  committee. 

The  committee  met  the  next  afternoon  after  school  in  the 
principal's  office.  The  other  members  of  the  committee 
were  Red  Schaefer  and  Stella  Lewis,  two  boisterous  young 
persons  of  whom  Felix  had  been  rather  afraid.  But  with 
the  business  in  hand  he  forgot  his  shyness,  and  seated  him 
self  at  the  Principal's  desk  before  a  pile  of  papers. 

"  We  have  met,"  he  said,  "  to  write  a  Constitution." 

Red  looked  glum  and  Stella  a  little  frightened.  "  How 
do  you  write  a  Constitution?"  asked  Red. 

"  Like  this,"  said  Felix,  and  set  pen  to  paper. 

Felix  knew  all  about  Constitutions;  and  when  half  an 
hour  later  the  Principal  dropped  in  to  see  how  they  were 
getting  along,  the  charter  of  the  Jefferson  School  Literary 
and  Athletic  Society  was  almost  completed. 

At  another  meeting  a  few  days  later,  Felix  read  the  Con 
stitution,  which  was  unanimously  adopted,  and  under  its 
provisions  they  proceeded  to  the  election  of  officers.  Felix 


104  Moon-Calf 

was  elected  president,  Stella  secretary  and  Red  treasurer 
by  acclamation. 

Felix  was  for  the  moment  surprised  and  confused  by  the 
honour  thus  bestowed  upon  him.  But  he  was  confused  for 
a  moment  only.  Instantly  his  egotism  rallied,  and  he 
promptly  took  charge  of  the  society  and  its  destinies. 


With  some  help  from  the  Principal  —  for  he  had  diffi 
culty  in  remembering  the  names  of  his  fellow  members  —  he 
picked  his  committees,  and  laid  out  their  work.  The  first 
thing  he  planned  was  a  literary  program.  Red  and  Stella 
were  to  be  the  principals  in  a  debate,  '*  Resolved,  That  Jef 
ferson  was  a  greater  president  than  Washington,"  and  he 
was  to  read  an  essay  on  "  Jefferson's  Influence  on  the  Early 
History  of  Our  Country/5  The  program  was  a  great  suc 
cess,  and  he  arranged  another  —  and  another. 

The  robustious  boys  and  girls  of  Jefferson  School,  who 
had  wanted  to  play  baseball  and  basketball,  spent  the  rest 
of  the  year,  somewhat  to  their  surprise,  writing  essays  and 
participating  in  debates.  They  did  not  know  why  this  was 
so.  They  only  knew  that  so  it  was.  The  reason  was  that 
Felix  had  forgotten  all  about  baseball  and  basketball. 

Felix  was  happy.  The  school,  which  had  seemed  to  him 
at  first  so  much  like  a  prison,  with  its  radiator  bars  run 
ning  around  all  sides  of  the  room,  and  its  tiny  cinder-strewn 
yard  at  the  back  shut  in  with  a  high  board  fence,  suddenly 
became  his  home.  He  hurried  there  eagerly  in  the  morning 
and  left  late  and  reluctant  in  the  afternoon.  Elated  by  his 
sense  of  power,  he  swaggered  about,  talked  inordinately, 
patronized  his  teachers  and  chummed  familiarly  with  the 
friendly  Principal.  The  blackboarded  room  in  which  he 
sat  was  glorified  in  his  eyes  by  the  uses  to  which  it  was  put 
every  Thursday  afternoon  when  he  mounted  the  platform, 
took  the  President's  chair  and  looked  out  over  an  assembly 
met  to  do  the  things  he  thought  interesting  to  do. 


Felix:  Dictator  105 


After  Christmas  there  was  a  new  election.  Felix,  per 
haps  fortunately,  declined  a  re-nomination,  and  Red  suc 
ceeded  him  to  the  presidency.  But  Felix  did  accept  the 
position  of  librarian  to  a  non-existent  library,  and  thence 
forth,  somewhat  to  its  surprise,  the  whole  energies  of  the 
Club  were  bent  to  making  that  library  come  into  being. 
Felix  would  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  a  hundred 
well-selected  books.  He  brought  his  own,  and  he  made 
everybody  else  bring  theirs;  and  when  this  still  left  some 
thing  to  be  desired,  he  arranged  a  performance  of  *'  Julius 
Caesar/*  to  be  attended  by  the  other  pupils  at  ten  cents  a 
head,  to  start  a  library  fund.  The  play  was  accordingly 
given,  Felix  taking  the  part  of  Mark  Antony.  Red  was 
Caesar,  and  Stella  refused  the  part  of  Caesar's  wife  (which 
was  then  cut  from  the  play),  and  insisted  on  being  one  of 
the  male  conspirators.  The  play  had  a  run  of  three  per 
formances,  and  brought  in  twenty-eight  dollars. 

A  meeting  was  held  at  which  the  question  of  how  to  use 
this  sum  was  brought  up.  The  second  and  third  perform 
ance  had  been  an  afterthought,  but  Felix  assumed  that  the 
whole  sum  would  go  to  the  library.  He  was  no  more  than 
slightly  annoyed  when  a  boy  who  had  never  before  raised 
his  voice  in  the  meetings  of  the  Jefferson  School  Literary 
and  Athletic  Society,  rose  at  the  far  corner  of  the  room 
and  with  a  flushed  face  and  awkward  tongue  stammeringly 
proposed  that  the  extra  eighteen  dollars  be  spent  for  base 
ball  paraphernalia.  Felix  was  rather  irritated  when  there 
seemed  to  be  some  support  of  this  outrageous  notion.  So 
he  rose  to  quell  the  revolt.  Still  flushed  with  his  Roman 
triumphs,  he  stood  up  like  Antony  beside  the  bier  of  Caesar, 
and  unleashed  his  words.  He  had  won  every  debate  he  had 
taken  part  in,  and  he  fancied  himself  as  a  speaker.  He 
could  see  interest  kindle  in  the  eyes  of  the  Principal  as  he 
spoke  of  how  great  a  boon  the  library  would  be  to  the  pupils 
who  followed  them  in  the  Jefferson  School.  He  spoke  of 


io6  Moon-Calf 

the  permanence  of  literature  as  compared  to  all  other  things. 
He  said  that  if  Jefferson  were  alive  to  know  the  action  of 
the  society  which  was  named  after  him,  he  would  be  glad 
that  they  were  doing  their  part  to  keep  alive  the  flame  of 
thought  in  the  nation  that  he  had  helped  to  establish.  In 
fact,  he,  Felix,  had  been  intending  to  suggest  that  the  whole 
sum  be  devoted  to  the  purchase  of  a  set  of  Jefferson's  writ 
ings:  and  this,  he  knew,  the  Jefferson  School  Literary  and 
Athletic  Society  would  be  proud  to  do. 

Perhaps  it  was  that  word  "  Athletic  " —  which  Felix  ut 
tered  as  a  mere  matter  of  form  in  pronouncing  the  name  of 
the  society,  but  which  stuck  out  to  his  hearers'  ears  in  ironic 
contrast  to  the  offensive  erudition  of  his  discourse.  Or  per 
haps  it  was  that  the  dumb  resentment  of  a  body  of  human 
beings  coerced  against  their  wishes  too  long  had  found  a 
voice  in  the  stammering  proposal  of  the  boy  in  the  corner. 
But  there  was  no  applause  when  Felix  finished  his  speech. 
He  did  not  notice  that,  and  waited  confidently.  No  one  else 
spoke.  Red  put  the  question.  Felix's  voice  alone  replied 
"  Aye."  When  the  Noes  were  called  for,  a  thundering  storm 
replied. 

Felix  sat  dazed  .  .  .  and  when  the  meeting  was  over, 
stumbled  out  of  the  building,  infinitely  bewildered  and  hurt. 
He  did  not  want  to  go  home.  He  went  instead  across  the 
gulley  behind  the  house  to  the  bluff,  and  lay  there  on  the 
grass,  watching  the  sunset  and  trying  to  forget. 

The  Jefferson  School  Literary  and  Athletic  Society  soon 
disbanded.  By  the  end  of  the  term,  Felix  had  recovered 
sufficiently  to  find  it  only  natural  that  he  should  figure  as  the 
chief  ornament  of  Jefferson  School  in  the  graduation  ex 
ercises.  He  decided  to  deliver  an  oration  on  "  The  In 
fluence  of  Ideas  on  Civilization." 


XI  A  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 


THE  whole  family  came  to  hear  Felix  deliver  his 
oration.  In  honour  of  the  occasion  he  had  a  new 
suit,  with  long  trousers.  Jim,  fretfully  anxious 
that  Felix  should  not  appear  in  public  in  his  usual  slovenly 
aspect,  superintended  his  toilet  for  the  occasion.  The  cel 
luloid  collar  which  Felix  ordinarily  wore  because  it  could 
be  cleaned  with  one  rub  of  a  damp  cloth,  was  discarded  for 
a  high  linen  one,  and  Jim  lent  him  a  fancy  stickpin  for  his 
necktie.  The  Principal  had  stayed  after  school  to  coach 
him  in  the  manner  of  his  delivery ;  but  when  the  time  came 
Felix  forgot  the  lessons,  and  standing  stiff  and  motionless, 
a  thin  pale  figure  in  a  high  collar  and  a  stiff  blue  suit,  he 
uttered  his  oration  toward  the  vaulted  roof.  His  voice  was 
changing ;  when  he  raised  it  too  high,  it  broke,  fluttering  up 
into  heights  of  piercing  shrillness,  and  only  finding  its  way 
back  after  erratic  explorations  into  a  profound  bass.  The 
Principal,  sitting  nervously  in  his  place  on  the  platform, 
flushed  and  bit  his  lip  when  these  accidents  occurred.  But 
Felix  was  unconscious  of  them ;  unconscious  of  his  audience, 
save  that  it  was  there  to  listen.  Rapidly,  in  a  strained  voice 
that  shifted  unexpectedly  from  key  to  key,  lost  to  the  world, 
forgetful  of  everything  save  what  he  was  saying,  he  delivered 
his  oration.  He  believed  in  the  influence  of  ideas  upon  civ 
ilization. 

At  home,  afterward,  his  brother  Ed  kissed  him  with  af 
fectionate  pride,  and  gave  him  a  five  dollar  gold  piece,  telling 
him  that  he  would  be  a  great  credit  to  his  family.  Ed  was 
going  to  leave  in  a  few  days  for  Port  Royal,  a  big  town 
up  the  river,  where  he  had  a  better  job ;  he  hoped  to  make 

107 


io8  Moon-Calf 

enough  money  to  help  the  family  out  of  their  difficulties,  and 
—  if  both  things  could  be  done  —  marry  Alice,  the  good- 
looking  Irish  girl  he  had  been  going  with  in  Vickley. 

Felix,  after  due  consideration,  spent  the  five  dollars  for 
an  unabridged  dictionary  of  the  English  language. 

His  mother  clipped  the  oration  from  the  Vickley  Union, 
where  it  was  printed  along  with  Felix's  photograph,  and 
laid  it  away  among  her  treasures. 


Felix  got  a  job  that  summer  delivering  groceries,  and 
held  it  with  great  difficulty  for  six  weeks.  He  could  not 
learn  how  to  hitch  up  the  horse  properly,  nor  remember 
where  the  streets  were.  Another  job  in  the  shipping  de 
partment  of  a  wholesale  house  was  interrupted  by  the  open 
ing  of  school.  It  had  become  a  family  tradition  that  Felix 
should  have  his  education,  and  though  Felix's  small  wage 
was  needed  by  the  family  it  was  taken  as  a  matter  of  course 
that  he  should  go  back  to  school. 

Unconscious  of  any  responsibility  attaching  to  him  in  the 
way  of  making  the  most  of  his  educational  opportunities, 
Felix  devoted  most  of  the  time  during  his  first  six  months 
at  high  school  to  writing  stories  for  the  school  monthly. 
The  stories  were  modelled  upon  those  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 
and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  world  he  lived  in,  of  which 
he  became  increasingly  oblivious. 

Every  evening,  unconscious  of  streets  or  people  or  the 
evening  sky,  he  would  hurry  to  the  little  grey  stone  building 
on  the  corner  facing  the  square.  He  was  one  of  the  three 
persons  in  town  who  were  permitted,  against  the  rules,  to 
go  direct  to  the  shelves.  The  other  two  he  frequently  saw 
prowling  like  himself  in  the  narrow  aisles  between  the  high- 
piled  tiers  of  books.  One  was  a  robust  clergyman  who  rode 
a  bicycle  and  wore  knickerbockers.  He  sometimes  tried  to 
engage  Felix  in  conversation,  but  without  success.  The 
other  was  the  secretary  of  a  woman's  club,  a  deep-bosomed, 
maternal  woman  who  annoyed  Felix  by  "  trying  to  help  him 


A  Critique  of  Pure  Reason         109 

find  what  he  wanted."  Felix  wanted  only  to  be  let  alone. 
He  would  go  here  and  there  among  the  shelves,  dipping  into 
this  book  and  that,  standing  on  one  foot  and  then  on  the 
other,  tasting  a  score  of  volumes  and  finally  at  the  closing 
hour  carrying  off  the  most  precious  of  them.  In  the  library 
he  was  a  free  citizen  of  a  great  world. 


Adolescence,  that  mysterious  re-birth  of  the  soul,  takes 
many  forms.  To  Felix  it  was  a  period  of  intense  happiness, 
of  amazing  and  delightful  discoveries.  Going  about  blind  to 
the  actual  world,  he  turned  his  gaze  inward  upon  a  world  of 
ideas  and  dreams.  He  lived,  so  far  as  he  could  be  said  to 
live,  among  the  books  at  the  public  library,  and  bent  over  a 
writing  table  with  a  pen  in  his  hand  in  a  corner  of  the  living 
room  at  home.  In  the  books  he  found  endless,  unrolling 
vistas  of  new  and  fascinating  ideas;  and  his  writings  were 
the  half-unconscious  record  of  his  fantastic  dreams.  He 
read  books  of  anthropology  and  ethnology  as  a  child  reads 
fairy  tales.  He  knew  why  savages  believed  that  stones  are 
alive  and  that  trees  can  speak,  why  they  had  totems  and 
consulted  medicine  men,  and  what  was  their  conception  of 
the  world  of  the  dead.  He  knew  about  neolithic  arrows 
and  brachycephalic  skulls.  He  knew  what  kind  of  visions 
a  certain  tribe  of  Southwestern  American  Indians  had  when 
they  ate  ceremonially  a  certain  poisonous  berry,  and  why 
another  tribe  in  Asia  worshipped  a  perpendicular  stone.  He 
pored  over  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  and  Aztec  picture-writ 
ings,  wandered  among  the  skulls,  flints  and  broken  pottery 
in  the  Vickley  Academy  of  Sciences,  and  read  some  dozens 
of  huge  volumes  containing  translations  of  the  Sacred  Books 
of  the  East. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  first  year  in  high  school  Felix  came 
across  a  book  which  furnished  a  grand  generalization  uniting 
all  that  he  had  been  learning  into  one  magnificent  theory. 
It  was  a  book  written  to  prove  that  all  civilization  had  or 
iginated  in  a  continent  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  from  which 


no  Moon-Calf 

colonists  had  spread  all  over  the  world.  This  continent  had 
been  submerged  in  some  tremendous  cataclysm,  of  which  the 
universal  legends  of  the  Flood  were  dim  memories.  Plato 
had  heard  of  such  a  continent  from  the  Egyptian  priests  — 
"  an  island  beyond  Gades."  An  examination  of  the  bed  of 
the  Atlantic  snowed  that  such  a  continent  had  once  existed. 
If  this  were  true,  it  explained  why  the  same  myths,  cus 
toms,  implements  and  architecture  were  found  all  over 
the  earth,  and  why  so  many  words  in  unrelated  languages 
were  identical.  For  confirmation,  the  author  quoted  a  hun 
dred  different  savants,  explorers,  historians. 

One  day  at  school,  in  the  class  in  ancient  history,  Felix 
mentioned  the  lost  continent  of  Atlantis.  The  teacher  asked 
him  what  he  meant,  and  Felix  occupied  the  rest  of  the  period 
telling  about  it.  The  teacher  was  dubious;  it  sounded  un 
true  ;  but  she  had  been  busy  teaching  since  she  left  college, 
and  in  that  time  many  new  discoveries  had  been  made ;  per 
haps  —  She  wished  to  tell  him  it  was  a  fraud,  but  did  not 
venture  to,  and  Felix  carried  off  the  occasion  with  his 
illusory  facts  and  his  very  real  fervour. 

That  afternoon,  after  school,  Felix  looked  up  one  of  these 
alleged  facts  in  the  book  from  which  it  had  been  quoted. 
It  was  one  at  which  he  had  noticed  the  teacher's  dubious 
smile.  Sure  enough  here  was  the  foremost  geologist  of  the 
age  saying :  '*  There  was  certainly  once  a  continent  where 
now  is  the  bed  of  the  Atlantic  " —  but  the  sentence  did  not 
end  there ;  it  went  on  — *'  a  continent  which  sank  a  few 
million  years  before  the  appearance  of  life  on  the  globe." 

Felix  was  dismayed.  Was  his  grand  theory,  then,  only  a 
lie?  He  looked  up  other  quotations  and  references.  It 
was  the  same  with  them  all.  They  were  garbled,  wrenched 
from  their  contexts,  made  to  misrepresent  the  facts  they 
dealt  with.  Or  else  they  were  not  quoted  from  scientific 
books  at  all,  but  from  other  imaginative  works  about  the 
Lost  Atlantis. 

Felix  suffered  in  giving  up  his  theory.  It  was  so  beautiful 
that  it  ought  to  be  true.  He  was  ashamed  of  the  spectacle 


A  Critique  of  Pure  Reason         ill 

he  had  made  of  himself  in  the  class-room,  retailing  stale 
nonsense.  He  was  glad  nobody  had  known  the  truth. 

The  incident  planted  in  his  mind  a  tiny  seed  of  suspicion 
toward  his  world  of  ideas.  He  could  be  deceived  and 
humiliated  there  where  he  thought  himself  safe,  as  well  as 
anywhere  else. 

But  the  seed  of  suspicion  had  fallen  upon  stony  soil,  and 
it  put  forth  no  roots.  His  bent  was  to  believe  in  new  ideas. 
How  could  one  not  succumb  to  the  fascination  of  theories 
—  such  theories  as  those  which  explained  the  process,  mag 
nificent  and  accidental,  by  which  the  moneron  became  the 
ape,  the  ape  a  tool-using,  fire-building  savage,  and  the  savage 
at  last  world-conquering  Man !  Or  that  other  theory,  of 
which  his  books  furnished  him  vague  hints,  that  in  a  final 
battle  against  kings  and  capitalists  and  priests,  mankind 
should  become  free.  His  vision  reached  confidently  back 
into  the  darkness  of  the  past  and  forward  into  the  mists  of 
the  future. 

In  an  argument  with  his  father  one  day  it  came  out  that 
he  did  not  believe  in  the  Republican  party.  Mr.  Fay  was 
incredulous,  angry,  hurt. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  he  asked,  rising  uncertainly  to 
confront  this  catastrophe,  "  that  you're  going  to  be  a  Demo 
crat?" 

"  No,"  said  Felix.  "  The  Democrats  are  just  as  bad  as  the 
Republicans.  Politics  is  all  rot  anyway." 

This  was  insanity.  But  even  insanity  wasn't  quite  as  bad 
as  having  a  son  of  his  turn  out  a  Democrat. 

Mr.  Fay's  instinct  was  to  blame  it  on  his  wife.  "  This," 
he  said,  turning  to  her  with  a  sarcastic  smile,  "  is  the  educa 
tion  you've  been  giving  him."  And  he  walked  out  of  the 
room. 

Felix  turned  to  walk  out  of  the  other  door.  His  mother's 
voice  halted  him  a  moment. 

"  Felix,"  she  asked  in  a  troubled  voice,  "  don't  you  believe 
in  God,  either?  " 

"  No.     Why  ?  "  said  Felix  absently,  and  went  out. 


112  Moon-Calf 

She  did  not  believe  he  had  understood  her  question.  But 
she  did  not  dare  to  ask  him  again. 

Felix  went  out  to  the  bluff,  and  while  the  sun  sank  in 
golden  clouds  he  lay  and  dreamed  of  a  golden  age  to  come. 
As  he  dreamed,  the  irritation  of  the  incident  at  home 
dwindled  and  vanished.  He  was  happy,  full  of  a  sense  of 
power. 

A  phrase  from  a  magazine  article  he  had  been  reading  re 
peated  itself  over  and  over  in  his  mind  like  a  strain  of  music : 
"  when  the  beings  that  are  yet  within  the  loins  of  man  shall 
stand  erect  upon  the  earth,  and  stretch  out  their  hands  among 
the  stars."  Then  it  faded,  and  a  single  word  shone  in  his 
mind  like  a  fragment  of  that  vanished  sun  which  had  just 
dropped  below  the  horizon :  "  Superman !  " 


XII  Two  Against  the  World 


IT  was  toward  the  end  of  his  second  year  in  high 
school,  when  Felix  was  sixteen  years  old,  that  he  found 
a  friend.  He  had  had  companions  of  a  sort  in 
Vickley;  but  he  had  not  been  conscious  of  any  bond  be 
tween  himself  and  them,  and  when  they  drifted  away  he 
was  scarcely  aware  of  the  loss.  There  was  no  one  to  whom 
he  could  speak  freely,  no  one  who  could  share  his  thoughts, 
until  Stephen  Frazer  blazed  into  his  life. 

Stephen  was  a  tall,  ungainly,  quiet  youth,  a  year  older 
than  Felix,  and  in  his  third  year  at  high  school.  He  and 
Felix  barely  knew  each  other  by  sight,  and  neither  of  them 
had  taken  any  notice  of  the  other,  until  one  evening  at  the 
library,  when,  standing  in  line  at  the  wicket,  they  found  that 
they  were  carrying  respectively  the  first  and  the  second  vol 
ume  of  Haeckel's  "  History  of  Creation."  In  the  shy  and 
rather  cautious  conversation  that  followed,  they  discovered 
that  the  carrying  of  these  twin  volumes  was  no  accident, 
but  that  they  were,  indeed,  kindred  souls.  When  the  li 
brary  assistant  came  up,  they  became  silent,  as  if  they  had 
been  caught  in  an  exchange  of  guilty  secrets.  They  went 
out  together  flushed  and  excited. 

"  Let's  go  some  place  where  we  can  talk,"  said  Stephen. 

"  Good,"  said  Felix. 

"  How  about  Bailey's  ?  We'll  have  a  Welsh  rabbit  and 
talk  while  we  eat." 

Bailey's  was  the  one  good  restaurant  that  the  town 
boasted.  It  was  outside  Felix's  world,  and  he  demurred. 
*'  I  haven't  enough  money,"  he  said. 

"  I've  got  plenty,"  said  Stephen.  "  But  you're  right  — • 

113 


114  Moon-Calf 

Bailey's  is  too  damned  respectable.  We'll  go  to  Joe's." 
And  he  led  the  way  to  a  dingy  lunch-room  filled  with  to 
bacco-smoke.  He  addressed  the  proprietor  familiarly  as 
they  took  their  seats  at  a  little  bare-topped  table,  and  or 
dered  coffee  and  hamburger  sandwiches  with  big  slices  of 
onion. 

"  And  now,"  he  said,  turning  earnestly  to  Felix,  "  how  far 
do  you  go  ?  All  the  way  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Felix. 

"  I  mean,  are  you  an  Atheist  ?  I  am !  "  He  said  it  de 
fiantly. 

"Oh,  that  — of  course,"  said  Felix. 

"  Then  shake !  "  said  Stephen,  holding  out  his  hand. 

Felix  was  a  little  bewildered  by  having  so  much  im 
portance  attached  to  that  fact,  but  he  felt  in  this  meeting 
something  which  was  new  in  his  life,  the  beginning  of  an 
unexpected  and  delightful  comradeship  in  the  adventure  of 
thought,  and  he  was  too  grateful  to  quibble  at  the  terms  of 
his  admission  to  it. 

'*  How  long  have  you  been  an  Atheist?"  was  Stephen's 
next  question. 

'*  Oh,  since  last  winter,"  said  Felix. 

Stephen  still  waited,  and  Felix  suddenly  realized  that  he 
was  expected  to  relate  the  whole  story.  "  It  began  with  my 
joining  the  church,"  he  said.  "  There  was  a  boy  at  school 
that  I  was  chumming  with. —  Walter  Edwards,  you  know 
him  —  and  he  wanted  me  to  go  to  Sunday  school  with  him 
at  the  First  Baptist  Church  down  here.  I  went,  and  it  was 
rather  interesting,  so  I  kept  on  going.  Then  the  whole  class 
was  going  to  join  the  church,  and  they  wanted  me  to  join, 
too.  I  didn't  see  any  reason  why  I  shouldn't  —  so  I  did. 
And  I  was  baptized,  and  caught  cold,  and  had  to  stay  at 
home  a  month.  And  the  minister  came  to  see  me,  and  left 
a  book  for  me  to  read.  It  was  a  volume  of  sermons  refuting 
the  higher  criticism.  I  had  never  heard  of  the  higher 
criticism  before,  but  the  more  I  read  the  more  it  appealed 
to  me.  I  read  the  book  three  times  —  and  made  notes  on 


Two  Against  the  World  115 

the  margins  of  the  pages  as  I  read.  The  third  time  finished 
me.  I  was  what  the  book  called  an  infidel.  .  .  .  And  that's 
all,"  he  finished. 

'*  And  that  was  all  ?  "  echoed  Stephen.  *'  You  mean  to 
say  you  did  it  all  by  yourself?" 

"  Well,"  said  Felix,  "  I  went  on  with  my  other  reading  — 
anthropology  and  all  that  —  and  I  noticed  that  nobody  else 
seemed  to  believe  in  the  Bible  either.  I  suppose  as  a  matter 
of  fact  I'd  never  believed  in  it  myself.  How  could  any 
one  believe  in  that  stuff,  once  he  stopped  to  think  about 
it?" 

"  And  it  came  as  easy  to  you  as  all  that  ?  God ! "  cried 
Stephen.  "  I  mean  " —  he  checked  himself  apologetically 
— "  well,  you  do  get  the  habit  of  saying  things  like  that,  and 
you  can't  drop  it  even  when  you  find  out  they  don't  mean 
anything.  I  was  going  to  say  I  had  a  devil  of  a  time  getting 
rid  of  those  old  notions  myself.  I  suffered  torment.  I  went 
through  hell."  He  paused,  as  though  discouraged  by  his 
inability  to  describe  his  emotions  without  invoking  the  fig 
ments  of  the  theology  which  he  had  discarded.  "  It  wasn't 
so  easy  for  me,"  he  concluded.  "  It  took  me  a  year  and  I 
don't  know  how  many  of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll's  books  before 
I  really  knew  where  I  was  at. —  You've  read  Ingersoll,  of 
:ourse?" 

"  No,"  said  Felix.  "  He  was  mentioned  in  the  book,  but 
E  never  knew  who  he  was." 

*'  You  never  read  Ingersoll ! "  Stephen  was  silent,  in 
startled  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  one  could  go  through 
such  a  crisis  without  help  from  Ingersoll. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "you'll  like  him.  I'll  lend  his  books 
:o  you.  I've  got  them  all.  I  saved  out  of  my  allowance 
md  bought  them." 

"  Allowance."  .  .  .  The  word  had  a  curious  sound  to 
Pelix.  He  had  never  encountered  it  save  in  books.  He 
ooked  at  Stephen,  and  noted  his  clothes.  They  were 
narkedly  different  from  his  own.  Felix  was  not  a  good 
>bserver,  and  did  not  know  in  what  the  difference  lay  — 


ii6  Moon-Calf 

a  silk  shirt  was  the  only  obvious  clue  —  but  they  had  an 
aristocratic  air.  The  difference  consisted  mainly  in  the  fact 
that  they  were  bought  for  summer  comfort  and  that  they 
fitted.  Felix's  own  wrists  protruded  from  his  sleeves,  his 
trousers  were  frayed  at  the  heels ;  and  though  Stephen  wore 
his  clothes  as  carelessly  as  Felix,  he  could  not  possibly 
make  them  look  so  unkempt.  And  Stephen's  speech  was 
like  his  clothes;  there  was  a  roughness  and  carelessness 
about  his  use  of  it  which  did  not  conceal  a  certain  aristo 
cratic  enunciation  of  the  vowels. 

But  these  class-differences,  vaguely  apprehended,  were 
utterly  forgotten  when  Frazer  began  to  talk  of  Ingersoll. 
"  Oh,  you  must  read  him !  He's  one  of  the  great  thinkers 
of  the  world !  "  And  with  passionate,  stumbling  eloquence 
he  began  to  describe  the  vision  of  a  free  humanity  which 
Ingersoll  had  given  him.  '*  Not  afraid !  —  not  chattering 
with  fear  in  the  dark !  —  not  beating  their  breasts  before 
idols  called  God!  —  not  worrying  about  being  good,  but 
just  being  happy  and  free  and  fearless  .  .  .  having  a  real 
heaven  here  on  earth.  .  .  . 

"  Felix !  I'm  damn'  glad  I  found  you.  ...  It  makes  me 
feel  as  if  we  might  see  a  little  of  that  ourselves  before  we 
die.  The  beginning  of  it,  anyway." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix  in  a  glow,  "  if  we  do  our  share  to  bring 
it  about." 

"  Yes,"  said  Frazer.  "  That's  it.  What  can  we  do?  ... 
Joe !  Two  hamburger  sandwiches  and  coffee !  .  .  ." 


The  comradeship  in  thought  that  thus  began,  flowered  in 
long  midnight  walks  and  talks,  in  which  the  world  was  torn 
down  and  rebuilt  anew  to  their  mutual  satisfaction,  in  the 
name  of  Atheism. 

Stephen  was  an  orphan  with  a  heritage  of  resentment 
against  the  religion  of  his  rigorous  Methodist  parents.  They 
had  not  let  him  play  on  Sunday,  they  had  horrified  his 


Two  Against  the  World  117 

young  imagination  with  accounts  of  the  torments  of  hell, 
and  they  put  the  ban  of  their  sternest  prohibition  upon  card- 
playing,  dancing,  and  the  theatre.  They  had  roused  him  to 
a  rebellion  which,  because  of  his  temperament,  had  taken 
even  in  boyhood  an  intellectual  turn.  And  now  that  they 
were  dead,  and  he  was  being  brought  up  by  an  uncle  who 
though  a  pillar  of  the  church  was  a  much  more  easy-going 
person,  he  was  still  fighting  it  out  with  the  tyranny  that  had 
cramped  his  childhood.  It  was  natural  enough  that  his 
adolescent  idealism  should  take  the  form  of  Atheism. 

But  Felix  had  never  had  any  religious  training.  He  had 
intermittently  gone  to  Sunday  School  in  Maple,  but  its 
mild  teachings  had  not  particularly  engaged  his  attention. 
Sunday  was  to  him  only  a  day  of  clean  clothes  and  day-long, 
uninterrupted  reading.  Religion  had  hardly  ever  been  men 
tioned  in  his  home.  As  to  forbidden  pleasures,  Felix  had 
been  freely  and  laughingly  offered  a  taste  —  which  he  did 
not  like  —  out  of  the  bottle  in  the  cupboard  from  which  his 
father  took  a  morning  and  evening  nip,  cocking  a  jolly  eye 
at  the  yellow  liquor  before  he  tossed  it  off;  Felix  had 
learned,  at  the  tender  age  of  eight,  to  play  poker  —  though 
not  with  any  skill  or  enjoyment;  and  nobody  except 
"  crazy  old  Henderson  "  had  ever  suggested  that  dancing 
was  wicked.  The  Bible  was  to  him  an  interesting  old 
book,  which  he  had  read  without  considering  whether  he 
had  to  "  believe  "  it  or  not.  He  had,  strictly  speaking,  no 
just  grudge  against  God. 

Stephen  had  got  into  the  habit  of  identifying  the  tyranny 
of  man,  of  which  he  took  increasing  note,  with  the  tyranny 
of  the  God  of  his  childhood.  He  knew  that  his  pious  uncle 
was  a  stockholder  in  a  box-factory  in  which  girls  were 
wretchedly  overworked  and  underpaid.  He  knew  that  his 
cousin  Fanny  loathed  her  husband,  and  fled  from  him  twice 
a  year  to  her  mother's  roof,  until  she  was  nagged  and  coaxed 
into  going  back  to  him.  He  knew  that  his  cousin  Will,  who 
had  a  secret  passion  for  writing  poetry,  was  fretting  mis 
erably  at  a  desk  in  his  father's  law-office.  His  rebellion 


ii8  Moon-Calf 

against  God  was  a  rebellion  against  the  order  of  the  world 
in  which  these  things  had  to  be. 

Felix  was  less  a  rebel  than  a  Utopian.  Since  that  time 
in  his  childhood  when  he  had  broken  all  the  laws  he  knew 
in  letting  his  sister  out  of  the  garret,  he  had  not  consciously 
contravened  authority  —  he  had  only  transcended  it  in 
dreams  of  perfection.  He  had  forgotten  his  runaway  sister. 
Nor  did  he  see  in  the  frustrated  ambitions  of  his  brother 
Ed  a  parallel  to  the  tragedy  of  the  lawyer-poet  of  whom 
Stephen  told.  He  had  come  to  ignore  the  world  about  him 
and  live  in  a  realm  of  his  imagining.  He  had  at  first  looked 
back  to  a  Golden  Age  in  the  past.  He  had  subscribed  de 
voutly  to  the  theory  of  Atlantis,  and  given  it  up  with  pain. 
He  had  believed  enthusiastically  in  the  Aztec  civilization  de 
scribed  in  Prescott's  fairy-tale  history,  and  mourned  sin 
cerely  when  his  ethnological  investigations  reduced  its  glories 
to  the  rude  achievements  of  a  barbaric  tribe.  He  had  turned 
for  a  time  to  the  more  authentic  splendours  of  Ancient 
Greece  for  solace;  but  there  was  an  ending  of  them  in  the 
squalor  and  misery  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  —  and  he 
could  not  satisfy  his  craving  for  perfection  with  the  con 
templation  of  a  ruin.  He  had  been  forced  to  look  forward 
into  the  future. 

Yet  in  companionship  with  Stephen  an  instinctive  hatred 
of  the  world  as  it  is  awoke  in  him  to  match  Stephen's  pas 
sion,  obliterating  with  lurid  crimson  the  crystalline  perfec 
tion  of  his  own  dreams.  Together  they  cursed  the  institu 
tions,  the  traditions,  the  restrictions,  the  cruelty  and  the 
waste  of  Christian  civilization. 

3 

Felix  went  to  the  library  as  usual.  But  it  had  become  for 
him  a  different  place.  It  was  no  longer  a  great  world  in 
which  he  wandered  alone  and  free ;  it  had  shrunk  to  a  ren 
dezvous. 

He  still  prowled  among  the  tall  bookstacks;  but  rest- 


Two  Against  the  World  119 

iessly,  hardly  touched  by  their  influences.  The  books  had 
a  rival,  and  he  communed  with  them  with  one  eye  on  the 
clock.  Every  little  while  he  would  hurry  out  in  front  for 
fear  of  missing  Stephen  Frazer. 

The  last  day  of  the  school  term  came  and  passed,  hardly 
noted.  That  night  Felix  was  waiting  on  the  front  steps  of 
the  library  when  Stephen  arrived.  When  they  saw  each 
other  their  eyes  lighted,  but  they  greeted  one  another  with 
an  air  of  nonchalance. 

They  went  inside,  and  Stephen  with  conspiratorial  quiet 
ness  drew  Felix  over  to  a  shelf  of  new  books. 

"  It's  probably  still  here.  Yes."  He  took  down  a  volume 
of  essays  by  a  writer  of  whom  neither  of  them  had  ever 
heard,  one  Maurice  Maeterlinck.  "  I've  been  reading  this 
fellow,"  he  whispered,  '*  and  he  doesn't  believe  in  God 
either." 

Felix  took  the  book  eagerly.  "  I'll  read  it,"  he  said. 
*'  And  see  here."  He  handed  over  a  new  novel  called  '*  The 
Octopus."  "  You  ought  to  read  this.  It's  got  a  lot  of 
stuff  in  there  that  you'll  like  —  Labor  and  Capital  and  all 
that." 

Stephen  looked  at  it  doubtfully.  Novels  did  not  seem 
to  him  quite  worthy  of  serious  attention.  Felix,  however, 
urged  its  claim  so  eloquently  that  he  generously  consented 
to  try  it. 

They  transacted  the  exchange  of  books,  and  fared  forth. 

"  Let's  go  to  Tracey's,"  said  Stephen. 

Tracey's  was  an  ice-cream  parlour  on  the  Square.  As 
they  sat  down  at  a  vacant  table  in  the  midst  of  the  laughing 
crowd,  the  band  over  in  the  Square  commenced  to  play 
"  In  the  Good  Old  Summer  Time."  Two  girls  at  the  next 
table  eyed  them  in  a  friendly  way,  and  one  of  them  hummed 
provocatively : 

"Strolling  down  a  shady  lane 
With  your  Baby  Mine, 
She  holds  your  hand  and  you  hold  hers — " 


120  Moon-Calf 

Felix  and  Stephen  placed  Maeterlinck's  essays  and  Frank 
Norris'  novel  carefully  on  one  side  of  the  little  table,  and 
gave  their  order.  "  Champagne  ice."  They  ordered  cham 
pagne  ice  always.  They  did  not  particularly  like  the  taste 
of  it ;  and  they  had  agreed  that  it  was  probably  made  with  an 
inferior  brand  of  champagne.  But  the  magic  of  the  name 
served  their  purpose.  It  was  a  symbol  —  understood  mu 
tually  without  explanation  —  of  the  pagan  attitude  toward 
life.  The  flavour  that  melted  softly  between  tongue  and 
teeth  was  the  flavour  of  freedom  and  joy.  The  icy  particles 
tingled  with  a  splendid  rebellion  against  God. 

"  I  asked  them  at  the  library  this  afternoon,"  said  Stephen, 
proceeding  along  a  natural  train  of  thought,  "  why  they 
didn't  have  the  works  of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll." 

Felix  nodded  approval.     *'  What  did  they  say  ?  " 

"  They  said  there  had  been  no  demand  for  them.  I  said, 
well,  there  was  a  demand  for  them  now !  I  felt  like  asking 
if  Father  Murphy's  being  on  the  board  had  anything  to  do 
with  it,  but  I  didn't." 

At  the  thought  of  the  powers  of  darkness,  in  the  shape 
of  Father  Murphy,  holding  back  the  light  of  intelligence 
from  the  whole  city,  indignation  burned  in  them.  They 
ceased  utterly  to  see  the  smiling  girls  at  the  tables  around, 
they  no  longer  heard  the  strains  of  music  from  the  Square. 
They  sat  there  feeling  wronged  and  frustrated. 

They  rose  at  last  and  went  out,  avoiding  the  crowds, 
seeking  the  darker,  quieter  streets  where  they  could  talk 
undisturbed.  Their  walk  led  them  past  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  and  becoming  aware  of  its  grey  presence,  they 
stopped  and  looked.  ...  A  pair  of  lovers  who  had  been 
sitting  on  the  dark  steps,  rose  and  went  away,  resentful  of 
this  intrusion  upon  their  privacy.  Ignoring  them,  Stephen 
pointed  at  the  church.  "  Look !  "  he  said  bitterly. 

Felix  looked,  and  saw  —  as  though  the  building  were  cov 
ered  with  gargoyles  —  a  thousand  fantastic  and  execrable 
shapes :  Copernicus  recanting  his  beliefs  about  astronomy ; 


Two  Against  the  World  12 1 

Bruno  burning  at  the  stake;  heretics  broken  on  the  rack  of 
the  Inquisition ;  old  women  being  drowned  for  witchcraft ; 
children  crying  out  in  the  flames  of  hell.  In  this  mild 
edifice  where  he  had  recited  dull  Sunday  School  lessons  he 
saw  all  hatefulness  and  hypocrisy,  all  terrorism  and  tyranny 
summed  up. 

"  Some  day,"  said  Stephen  softly,  "  some  one  will  come 
along  and  do  what  Luther  did  at  Wittenburg." 

•'  Theses!"  cried  Felix.     "Nailed  to  the  door!" 

They  were  silent,  while  they  tasted  the  glory  of  that 
antique  heroism;  and  then  there  came  into  their  minds  a 
picture  of  themselves  doing  the  same  thing  —  here  and  now. 
Why  not? 

Felix  drew  from  his  pocket  the  paper  and  pencil  which  he 
always  carried. 

Stephen  dictated :  "  Whereas  the  teachings  of  the  church 
are  contrary  to  those  of  evolutionary  science  — " 

"  No,"  said  Felix.  "  It  ought  to  be  more  direct.  Some 
thing  like  this :  *  We  do  not  believe  in  your  heaven.  We 
are  not  afraid  of  your  hell.  We  despise  your  morality. 
We  hate  your  tyranny.  Your  end  has  come/  " 

Sitting  down  on  the  church  steps,  they  outlined  the  docu 
ment,  in  the  half-light  from  the  electric  arc  at  the  corner. 
Their  enthusiasm  waxed,  then  waned.  Half  way  through, 
they  paused,  discouraged  by  a  sudden  sense  of  the  practical 
difficulties  of  the  enterprise. 

"  I  suppose  it  ought  to  be  printed,"  suggested  Felix. 

"  And  signed  by  a  committee,"  assented  Stephen. 

"  But  who  is  there  in  town  besides  us  ?  "  Felix  asked. 

Stephen  knew  of  none  other  righteous  within  the  city. 

<l  Perhaps,"  suggested  Stephen,  "  the  time  isn't  ripe  for 
it." 

"  I  suppose  not,"  agreed  Felix,  and  reluctantly  put  the  pa 
per,  on  which  so  many  eloquent  truths  were  written,  back  in 
his  pocket. 

They  vacated  the  steps  and  walked  away,  without  noticing 


122  Moon-Calf 

another  couple  who  had  been  lingering  near  by  and  who,  as 
soon  as  they  had  gone,  slipped  quietly  into  the  shadow  of  the 
church  porch. 

Silently,  with  a  depressing  sense  of  all  the  stupidity  and 
blindness  and  hypocrisy  of  their  fellow  men,  they  walked  to 
Joe's  through  the  sweet  cool  air  of  midnight. 

4 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  this  summer  ?  "  asked  Stephen, 
in  an  interlude  in  the  discussion  of  sublimer  topics  at  Joe's. 

"  Get  a  job,"  said  Felix. 

"What  kind  of  a  job?" 

u  Oh,  anything  —  it  makes  no  difference.  I'll  get  fired 
after  a  month  or  so  anyway."  Felix  spoke  with  the  knowl 
edge  of  experience. 

'*  But  what  are  you  going  to  do  after  you  finish  school  ?  " 
Stephen  himself  was  going  to  be  a  mechanical  engineer. 

"  Do  ? "  answered  Felix,  dreamily.  "  The  same  thing 
.  .  .  get  a  job  and  lose  it  ...  and  then  another  .  .  .  and 
another.  .  .  ." 

"  Well,"  suggested  Stephen,  distressed  but  optimistic,  "  at 
that  rate  you're  bound  to  land  somewhere." 

"  No,"  said  Felix.  "  I  doubt  it.  ...  But  I  don't  have  to 
look  for  a  job  until  tomorrow.  Meanwhile  — " 

They  reconstructed  the  universe. 


XIII  The  Not  Impossible  She 


s 


jATURDAY  morning  Felix  started  out  to  look  for 
work.     He  had  no  theory  as  to  where  he  ought  to 

go,  and  his  feet  were  guiding  him  along  the  ac 
customed  route  to  the  public  library  when  he  saw  a  sign  that 
said  "  Boy  Wanted." 

It  was,  oddly  enough,  in  front  of  Tracey's.  Felix  paused, 
amused  at  the  thought  that  after  knowing  Tracey's  as  one 
knows  it  who  sits  in  front  of  champagne  ice,  he  might  now 
have  to  know  it  from  behind  the  counter.  The  idea  ap 
pealed  to  him,  and  he  went  in. 

It  was  not  in  the  shop,  however,  but  in  the  candy-factory 
on  the  floor  above  that  a  boy  was  wanted.  So  he  climbed 
a  stairway  and  found  the  foreman  —  a  tall,  pale  worried 
looking  man,  who  told  him  the  wages  —  five  dollars  a  week 
—  and  when  Felix  said  that  was  satisfactory,  told  him  to  be 
on  hand  Monday  morning  at  seven  o'clock.  He  seemed 
glad  to  have  the  matter  settled. 

So  was  Felix.  He  had  never  found  it  hard  to  get  a  job 
in  vacation  time.  He  was  aware  that  he  looked  intelligent, 
and  that  it  was  past  the  powers  of  a  foreman  to  discern 
beforehand  that  his  kind  of  intelligence  was  not  the  kind  that 
was  likely  to  be  useful  in  a  factory.  But  he  was  glad  to 
have  it  over,  so  that  he  could  think  of  other  things.  .  .  . 
His  feet  carried  him  on  to  the  public  library. 

He  had  noticed,  however,  that  one  of  the  two  rooms  was 
full  of  girls,  working  at  long  tables.  He  commented  on  this 
to  Stephen  that  night,  wondering  what  they  were  like. 

"  Well,"  said  Stephen  gloomily,  thinking  of  the  frowsy 
slaves  he  had  glimpsed  in  a  visit  to  his  uncle's  box-factory, 
"  you  know  what  factory  girls  are  like." 

123 


124  Moon-Calf 

But  Felix  didn't  know,  and  he  still  wondered. 


On  his  first  morning  at  the  factory  Felix  arrived  five 
minutes  late  —  not  an  auspicious  beginning.  He  had  read 
an  exciting  book  on  evolution,  lying  in  bed,  until  two  o'clock 
the  night  before,  and  had  fallen  asleep  after  the  alarm  clock 
went  off,  and  hurried  away  finally  without  any  breakfast. 

There  were,  of  the  half  dozen  workmen  he  had  seen  in 
the  factory  on  Saturday,  only  two  left,  the  foreman  and  a 
boy  a  little  older  than  himself  —  but  they  were  making  up 
for  the  absence  of  the  rest  by  being  preternaturally  busy. 
The  foreman  gave  him  a  worried  glance,  recognized  him  with 
a  grunt,  and  with  an  annoyed  gesture  told  him  to  wait.  He 
was  fiercely  concocting  something  in  a  little  copper  kettle 
over  a  charcoal  fire.  The  boy,  a  thin  youth,  white  with 
starch  from  head  to  foot,  was  pouring  hot  candy  out  of  a 
pot  with  six  mouths  into  a  long  array  of  moulds.  Felix 
stood  about  a  few  minutes,  and  then,  feeling  his  idle  pres 
ence  to  be  out  of  key  with  their  fervid  industry,  wandered 
into  the  other  room. 

Instead  of  the  dozen  girls  he  had  glimpsed  there  on  Sat 
urday,  there  were  only  four.  Three  of  them  were  seated 
at  one  of  the  long  tables,  wrapping  caramels.  The  other,  a 
handsome  girl  of  about  his  own  age,  with  black  eyes  and 
hair,  stood  at  the  end  of  the  table  turning  the  wheel  of  some 
kind  of  machine.,  Her  sleeves  were  rolled  to  the  shoulder, 
and  the  rhythmic  flashing  movement  of  her  smooth  white  arm 
fascinated  Felix. 

Seeing  him,  she  stopped  suddenly  and  called :  "  Here ! 
Are  you  the  new  boy  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  standing  where  he  was. 

"  Then  come  here,"  she  said  imperiously.  "  This  is  your 
job."  The  others  laughed,  and  Felix  came  forward,  flush 
ing. 

"  Is  it?     I  didn't  know,"  he  said. 

*'  Well,  you  know  now,"  said  the  girl,  smiling  and  taking 


The  Not  Impossible  She  125 

her  seat  at  the  table  with  the  others.  Felix,  conscious  of 
appraising  scrutiny  from  critical  eyes,  took  his  place  at  the 
wheel  and  devoted  all  his  attention  to  its  operation.  He 
discovered  that  as  the  wheel  was  turned,  a  knife  rose  and 
fell,  and  a  long  strip  of  brown  candy  was  pushed  forward 
to  meet  the  next  stroke.  When  he  had  cut  the  candy  into 
strips,  he  turned  them  the  other  way,  and  the  knife  sliced 
them  into  neat  cubes.  He  pushed  the  caramels  off  on  to 
the  table  in  front  of  the  girls,  and  asked,  looking  at  nobody 
in  particular: 

"What  shall  I  do  next?" 

The  black-eyed  girl  answered,  this  time  with  a  kind  of 
maternal  authoritativeness :  "  Go  to  the  starch-room  and  get 
another  strip  of  candy." 

"  Where  is  the  starch  room  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  That  little  coop  in  there.  The  starch-monkey  will  show 
you  what  to  do." 

The  "  starch-monkey  "  must  be  the  boy.  Felix  found  him 
in  the  starch-room,  and  was  advised  to  roll  the  strip  of 
candy  to  reduce  it  to  the  proper  thickness.  He  did  so,  and 
returned.  The  girls  were  wrapping  slowly  the  last  of  the 
caramels  he  had  cut.  As  he  entered,  their  fingers  began  to 
fly  faster.  He  put  the  soft  brown  strip  in  the  machine,  and 
turned  the  wheel.  The  knife  rose  and  fell  monotonously, 
and  piles  of  little  cubes  rolled  down  upon  the  table.  The 
girls,  with  incredible  swiftness,  with  as  it  seemed  but  a 
single  movement  of  the  hands,  wrapped  each  cube  in  a  tiny 
piece  of  oiled  paper  and  placed  it  in  a  pasteboard  box  — 
one  after  another,  faster  than  the  eye  could  follow;  and 
unconscious  of  these  movements,  they  kept  on  talking  and 
laughing.  One  of  the  girls  was  telling  a  funny  and  mildly 
shocking  story  about  an  incident  that  had  happened  on  the 
last  steamboat  excursion.  Glancing  at  Felix,  she  chose  her 
words  carefully  for  a  minute,  and  then  as  he  seemed  to  be 
paying  no  attention  she  lapsed  into  broader  speech.  Felix, 
who  had  adjusted  himself  after  his  own  fashion  to  the  situa 
tion,  was  submerged  in  the  tide  of  his  own  thoughts.  He 


126  Moon-Calf 

awoke  for  a  moment  when  the  story  set  them  all  laughing, 
and  then  forgot  them. 

"  The  foreman !  "  whispered  one  of  the  girls.  They  be 
came  silent,  and  sat  very  straight,  and  worked  with  even 
more  miraculous  deftness.  The  foreman,  entering,  stood  a 
moment  looking  at  Felix ;  then  he  gave  a  grunt,  indicating 
qualified  satisfaction,  and  went  away.  Hardly  had  he  gone 
when  the  talk  and  laughter  burst  out  again.  They  talked, 
and  Felix  thought  about  evolution,  and  they  all  produced 
caramels  by  the  divine  gift  of  reflex  action. 


It  was  a  week  or  two  before  Felix  came  out  of  his  shell. 
He  had  at  first  been  so  silent,  so  apparently  unconscious  of 
all  that  went  on,  that  they  had  got  into  the  habit  of  talking 
as  though  he  were  not  there  at  all.  He  was,  for  the  most 
part,  as  unconscious  as  he  seemed.  But  he  would  awake 
from  some  dreamy  abstraction  to  find  himself  listening  to 
banter  and  reminiscence,  allusion  and  comment,  which  be 
trayed  a  franker  code  of  manners  than  he  had  known  existed 
among  women.  He  liked  it,  for  it  made  them  seem  more 
human.  And  as  his  shyness  wore  off  he  startled  them  with 
an  occasional  remark  which  reminded  them  that  he  actually 
had  ears.  But  gradually,  because  he  had  a  sharp  tongue 
to  match  theirs,  and  could  take  care  of  himself  in  an  argu 
ment,  he  established  himself  in  their  respect,  and  they 
treated  him  henceforth  with  an  affectionate  camaraderie. 
And  he  began  to  see  and  like  them  as  distinct  individuals. 

First  of  all,  of  course,  was  the  imperious  black-eyed  girl. 
Her  name  was  Margaret.  She  was  seventeen  years  old. 
She  had  a  variety  of  charm.  Sometimes  she  was  witty, 
sometimes  mockingly  tender.  An  airy,  evanescent  flirtation 
sprang  up  between  them  —  a  playful  intimacy  of  tones  and 
glances. 

The  others  were  less  interesting.  Dora  was  like  a  school 
girl,  except  for  her  slang  and  bad  grammar.  Alice  was  soft 
and  stupid  and  kind.  Fat  Lizzie,  who  had  been  twice  mar- 


The  Not  Impossible  She  127 

ried,  had  a  vast  amused  tolerance  for  the  weaknesses  of 
men,  and  a  racy  way  of  expressing  it.  He  liked  them  all, 
but  he  set  Margaret  apart  from  them  in  his  imagination. 

He  talked  about  her  to  Stephen,  who  was  obtuse  to  Felix's 
enthusiasm.  "  I've  no  doubt  she's  pretty,"  Stephen  would 
say.  '*  Factory  girls  sometimes  are,  I  suppose." 

In  vain  Felix  endeavoured  to  express  to  Stephen  the 
special  charm  of  her  manner,  transcending  mere  prettiness 
—  a  charm  that  was  by  turns  girlish,  boyish,  kittenish,  and 
maternal,  and  always  delightful. 

"  But  can  she  think  ?  "  demanded  Stephen. 

"  Think!  "  said  Felix.     "  Of  course  she  can  think!  " 

"  Our  thoughts  ?  "  Stephen  gravely  specified. 

"Why  not?"  said  Felix  defiantly. 

"  I  believe,"  said  Stephen,  shaking  his  head,  "  you're 
falling  in  love  with  her." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Felix  lightly. 


Of  course  he  liked  her.  Why  not?  It  was  delightful  to 
watch  her  move,  to  hear  her  speak.  There  was  beauty  in 
the  curve  of  her  eyelashes,  and  in  the  soft  roundness  of  her 
cheek,  and  a  delicious  sense  of  intimacy  in  the  meeting  of 
their  eyes  —  that  was  all. 

But  one  day  a  strange  thing  happened.  He  had  stub 
bornly  persisted,  in  spite  of  ridicule  —  or  perhaps  because 
of  it  —  in  wearing  into  the  hottest  days  of  July  the  "  sleeve- 
protectors  "  his  mother  had  made  for  him.  Margaret  had 
protested  that  they  made  her  hot  to  look  at  them.  It  was  in 
the  noon-hour  after  one  of  these  jesting  discussions  about 
his  "  sleeve-protectors  "  that  he  felt  her  hand  upon  his  arm, 
and  turned  disquietedly  to  face  her.  "  Stand  still,"  she 
said,  "  I'm  going  to  fix  you  up."  He  submitted,  and  she 
took  off  the  offending  things  and  rolled  up  his  sleeves.  Her 
head  was  close  to  his,  and  her  hair  dizzied  him,  and  when 
she  had  finished  and  smiled  into  his  eyes,  his  knees  suddenly 


128  Moon-Calf 

became  weak.  He  walked  away  unsteadily,  wondering  what 
had  happened  to  him. 

Could  that  strange  new  weakness  be  love? 

That  afternoon  they  sang.  It  began  with  popular  songs 
of  the  day,  and  went  on  after  these  were  exhausted  to  songs 
they  had  sung  at  school,  and  ended  with  a  Sunday  school 
hymn  that  they  all  knew.  Felix,  listening  to  Margaret's 
clear,  sweet  voice,  almost  forgot  that  he  was  an  Atheist. 
"  Shall  There  Be  Any  Stars  In  My  Crown?"  She  made 
even  that  question  beautiful. 

Presently  the  song  ended  and  their  eyes  met.  Sometimes 
when  her  lashes  shaded  them,  her  eyes  seemed  purple  black ; 
sometimes  they  had  curious  golden  lights  in  them.  Some 
times  they  were  mischievous,  sometimes  bold,  sometimes 
wistful.  At  times  they  stabbed  him  so  that  he  had  to  look 
away;  again  they  clung  to  his.  Now  as  their  looks  met 
he  was  conscious  of  neither  colour  nor  meaning,  only  that 
they  were  touching  one  another  that  way. 

He  did  not  know  how  long  it  lasted,  but  one  of  the  girls 
suddenly  laughed  and  said :  "  See  them !  See  them !  " 

The  laughter  and  mockery  jostled  between  them,  and  they 
looked  down. 

"  Never  mind/'  said  Lizzie,  cheerfully.  "  We  all  knew  it 
anyway !  " 

Felix  discovered  that  his  body  was  beginning  to  tremble, 
and  to  conceal  it  he  walked  out  of  the  room.  When  he  re 
turned,  the  foreman  was  there  and  every  one  was  working 
silently.  He  went,  and  still  nobody  spoke.  Felix  thought 
he  could  tell  that  Margaret  had  been  crying. 

At  last  one  of  the  girls  looked  up.  "  We  need  some  more 
boxes,"  she  said. 

Margaret  rose.  "  I'll  get  them,"  she  said.  *'  Felix,  you 
come  along  with  me.  Let's  give  them  a  chance  to  talk  about 
us."  She  drew  his  arm  in  hers. 

Together  they  went  upstairs  to  the  stockroom  —  a  dark 
empty ish  place  under  the  rafters.  Margaret  knocked  the 
dust  from  a  packing  case  with  her  apron  and  sat  down, 


The  Not  Impossible  She  129 

leaving  room  for  Felix  beside  her.  He  hesitated,  then  sat 
down  silently. 

"  Felix,"  she  said  softly,  "  we  mustn't  mind  what  they 
say." 

He  made  no  attempt  to  reply. 

She  smiled  into  his  eyes.  "  We  can't  help  it  that  we're 
such  sillies,  can  we  ?  " 

"  No,"  he  replied  helplessly. 

They  said  nothing,  but  groped  for  each  other's  hands. 
There  was  vast  comfort  in  the  touch.  After  a  while  she 
rose,  drew  her  hands  softly  away,  and  whispered : 

"  Now  let's  get  the  boxes." 

He  took  them  from  the  shelf,  and  they  proceeded  soberly 
downstairs.  Laughing  glances  met  them,  but  their  haughty 
demeanour  did  not  encourage  any  one  to  say  anything 
aloud. 

The  rest  of  the  day  Felix  was  unusually  absent-minded. 
In  the  afternoon  the  stock  of  caramel  candy  gave  out,  and 
the  foreman  told  him  to  put  some  glucose  in  a  certain  kettle. 
He  put  it  in  the  wrong  kettle,  and  spoiled  a  batch  of  marsh- 
mallow  candy  that  was  almost  done. 

The  foreman  was  less  angry  than  distressed.  "  I  wanted 
to  give  those  girls  something  to  do,"  he  said,  and  set  about 
rectifying  Felix's  stupidity.  The  "starch-monkey"  con 
fided  to  Felix,  as  he  stood  helplessly  about,  that  he  thought 
they  were  all  going  to  be  laid  off  at  the  end  of  the  week.  .  .  . 

The  closing  whistle  blew.  Margaret  usually  changed  her 
working  blouse  for  the  one  she  wore  on  the  street  without 
leaving  the  work-room.  But  this  time  she  secluded  herself 
for  the  change.  .  .  .  Her  eyes  were  mocking  as  they  parted 
at  the  door. 

5 

That  night  Felix  went  for  a  long  walk.  He  was  dis 
tressed  about  enjoying  Margaret's  singing  of  the  hymn.  He 
decided  that  he  must  tell  her  his  ideas  .  .  .  about  hymns. 

Having  made  this  decision,  he  went  to  Joe's.     Stephen 


130  Moon-Calf 

was  there.  Of  late  when  Stephen  had  questioned  him  about 
"  that  girl  at  the  factory,"  Felix  was  brief  and  evasive. 

In  the  midst  of  the  silence  that  brooded  tonight  over  their 
sandwiches  and  coffee,  Stephen  suddenly  said :  "  I've  been 
thinking  about  you  and  that  girl,  Felix."  Felix  bridled  as 
at  an  impertinence,  but  waited.  "  After  all,  if  you  like  her, 
why  should  you  care  whether  she's  interested  in  our  ideas 
or  not?  What  chance  has  a  factory  girl  got  to  hear  about 
—  about  evolution?  It  isn't  her  fault  —  and  it  isn't  yours. 
And  there's  no  sense  in  making  yourself  miserable." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  demanded  Felix. 

"  I  mean  —  well  —  doubtless  she'd  like  to  be  made  love 
to.  And  —  well  —  you  say  she's  pretty.  .  .  .  What's  the 
matter?" 

"  Nothing,"  said  Felix.  "  I'm  just  tired.  I'm  going 
home." 

He  rose  and  put  on  his  hat.  Stephen  pushed  back  his 
cup  and  rose,  too. 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Stephen,  as  they  reached  the  door. 

"Well?"  asked  Felix,  pausing. 

"  Do  you  remember  what  day  tomorrow  is  ?  " 

"  Tomorrow  ?     Oh,  yes." 

*'  Are  you  going  to  do  what  we  agreed  ?  " 

"Wear  a  carnation?     Oh,  yes." 

"Well  — that's  all." 

'*  Good  night,  then,"    And  Felix  walked  away. 

Stephen  stood  staring  after  him.  "  Well,  I'll  be  darned," 
he  said. 


The  next  morning  Felix  stopped  at  a  florist's  shop  and 
bought  a  red  carnation,  which  he  put  into  his  buttonhole  to 
commemorate  a  day  sacred  to  himself  and  Stephen  as 
Atheists. 

As  he  walked  into  the  factory,  Margaret  fixed  a  quizzical 
glance  on  the  flower.  "  Why  the  posy  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I'm  celebrating,"  he  said. 


The  Not  Impossible  She  131 

"  Celebrating  what  ?  The  fact  that  we're  all  likely  to  be 
laid  off  tomorrow  ?  " 

"Somebody's  birthday,"  he  said. 

44  Whose?" 

Here  was  the  moment  to  tell  her  all  the  beliefs  that  he 
feared  held  them  apart.  But  he  hesitated  a  moment  and 
fenced  for  time  before  he  pronounced  the  name  of  his  hero. 
"  Guess,"  he  said. 

She  puckered  her  brows,  then  laughed,  clapped  her  hands, 
and  cried: 

"  Why,  Bob  Ingersoll's,  of  course !  I  had  forgotten ! 
But  it  is  today,  isn't  it?" 

For  a  moment  Felix  believed  in  miracles.  But  the  fore 
man  came  in  just  then,  and  the  day's  work  began.  There 
was  no  chance  for  any  speech  of  explanation  between  them. 
They  could  only  look  at  each  other. 

Her  look  was  of  mischievous  pride  in  the  sharing  of  a 
pleasant  secret,  while  his  was  a  burning  flash  of  wonder  and 
gratitude. 

7 

The  explanation,  when  it  came,  was  a  new  mystery  to 
him. 

"  Why,"  she  said,  "  I  was  brought  up  on  Bob  Ingersoll. 
My  father's  a  Socialist  and  freethinker." 

*'  And  you  never  told  me !  "  he  said. 

"  Why  should  I  tell  you  ?  You  never  asked  me.  But  I 
always  knew  you  were  a  Socialist,  too." 

"Am  I?"  he  said. 

"  Of  course  !  " 

It  came  out  that  he  didn't  know  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  the  Socialist  party.  She  clapped  her  hands.  "  It  will  be 
fun  to  take  you  to  the  Socialist  local,"  she  said. 

Vistas  opened  before  him. 


XIV  The  Break-Up 


THE  Fay  household  had  been  in  a  disorganized  state 
for  the  past  month,  due  to  the  absence  of  Mrs. 
Fay.     She  had  gone  to  visit  her  sisters  on  the  old 
farm.     They  had  written  several  times  urging  her  to  come, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  a  month  or  two  in  the  country  might 
improve  her  ailing  health.     Moreover,  the  sisters  had  sent 
the  money  to  pay  for  the  railroad  tickets,  which  made  it 
possible  for  her  to  go. 

Mr.  Fay,  having  seen  her  safely  there,  was  staying  with 
old  friends  in  Harden  and  Maple.  It  must  have  been  good, 
judging  from  his  brief  but  enthusiastic  letters,  to  be  once 
more  among  those  who  had  known  him  as  Adam  Fay  the 
butcher,  and  as  Banty  Fay,  the  daredevil  of  Company  B. 

Meanwhile  Jim's  rheumatism  and  temper  had  got  worse. 
And  with  only  Felix  there  to  look  after  him  —  for  Ed  had 
married  and  moved  away  the  year  before  —  and  with  their 
rather  unskilful  attempts  at  keeping  bachelor's  hall,  the 
atmosphere  of  the  menage  was  scarcely  pleasant. 

Jim  did  not  wish  to  shorten  his  mother's  visit  by  com 
plaining  of  his  own  troubles,  but  he  was  greatly  relieved 
when  a  letter  came  from  her  saying  that  she  was  "  ever  so 
much  better  "  and  that  she  and  "  Pa  "  would  be  home  Sun 
day.  "  If  this  thing  was  going  to  keep  up,"  said  Jim  bit 
terly  at  breakfast  on  Saturday,  Felix  having  let  the  bacon 
burn  and  forgotten  to  salt  the  fried  potatoes,  '*  I'd  go  to  the 
Soldier's  Home  hospital." 

Felix  remarked  that  he  also  would  be  glad  when  Sunday 
came,  and  hurried  impatiently  off  to  work. 

132 


The  Break-Up  133 

He  was  implicitly  certain  that  Sunday  would  bring  with 
it  a  restoration  of  the  family  life.  Their  life  had  been  full 
of  change,  but  the  family  was  permanent. 


The  warning  of  an  impending  lay-off  that  had  been  made 
by  the  starch-monkey,  had  spread  in  whispers  through  the 
shop  all  the  previous  day.  The  prospect  was  discussed  re 
signedly  by  the  girls,  and  the  behaviour  of  the  foreman  was 
taken  as  confirmation  of  it.  He  seemed  subdued  and  apolo 
getic,  as  though  he  had  been  defeated  in  his  effort  to  keep 
the  shop  going.  "  I  don't  care,"  the  starch-monkey  had 
confided  to  Felix,  "  I'm  coming  back  in  the  fall.  I've  taken 
an  interest  in  things,  and  the  foreman  likes  me.  I'm  going 
to  be  a  candy-maker.  You  could  get  to  be  one  too,  if  you 
had  any  sense.  But  you're  too  much  interested  in 


So  when  they  came  to  the  factory  on  Saturday  morning, 
it  was  with  a  certainty  that  it  was  to  be  their  last  day  there, 
for  the  summer  at  least.  It  was  more  final  than  that  for 
nost  of  them.  Felix  would  be  back  at  school.  The  girls 
vould  scatter  to  other  factories.  That  sense  of  finality  made 
:he  day  a  special  one  in  the  minds  of  all  of  them.  They 
:ame  early,  and  stood  about  talking  in  low  tones  with  sup- 
messed  excitement.  It  reminded  Felix  somehow  of  Grad- 
lation  Day  —  except  that  he  had  never  felt  for  any  of 
he  boys  and  girls  at  school  the  liking  he  felt  for  these  peo- 
»le.  He  liked  them  all  —  slangy  Dora,  stupid,  kind-hearted 
Uice,  fat  and  vulgar  'Lizzie  —  even  the  foreman,  yes,  even 
he  starch-monkey  —  that  incarnate  representation  of  young 
ndustrial  efficiency,  of  everything  that  Felix  lacked.  And 
his  was  to  be  their  last  day  together. 

The  girls  looked  their  prettiest  that  morning,  with  fresh 
resses  and  ribbons  in  their  hair.  Margaret,  with  a  high- 
iled  coiffure  of  her  black  hair,  had  taken  on  a  new  dignity 
lat  was  one  more  enhancement  of  her  loveliness. 

When  the  clock  struck  seven  they  were  at  their  places. 


134  Moon-Calf 

But  they  all  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  something.  And 
presently  the  foreman  came  in.  Perhaps  he  had  hoped  there 
would  be  orders  that  morning  that  would  justify  keeping 
them  a  week  longer.  But  he  made  no  explanations.  He 
only  paused  negligently  by  the  corner  of  the  table,  picked 
up  a  caramel,  dropped  it,  and  said: 

"  We're  going  to  have  to  lay  you  off  for  the  season.  You 
can  quit  at  noon." 

He  walked  casually  back  to  the  other  room,  and  conferred 
with  the  starch-monkey  about  a  "  batch."  Everybody  felt 
relieved,  and  commenced  to  talk. 

The  batch  which  the  foreman  and  the  starch-monkey 
made  turned  out  to  be  cocoanut  candy,  which  was  rolled  into 
tiny  cakes,  toasted  in  a  gas-oven,  and  packed  into  boxes. 
The  girls  sampled  them  shamelessly,  almost  under  the  nose 
of  the  foreman.  Hot  from  the  oven  they  were  a  confection 
which  even  they,  who  had  quickly  lost  their  taste  for  sweets, 
could  enjoy.  Margaret  fed  the  brownest  of  them  to  Felix. 
She  had  on  an  apron,  and  looked  like  a  charming  housewife. 
As  she  stood  there  at  the  stove  with  him  she  was  playing 
at  being  married  —  and  she  knew  that  Felix  understood. 
Her  cheeks  became  more  flushed,  and  her  eyes  seemed  to 
have  new  depths  as  she  looked  at  him. 

Finished  with  the  cakes  they  went  back  to  caramels,  and 
eked  them  out  with  songs.  The  singing  expressed  what 
none  of  them  was  able  to  put  into  words  —  the  sense  of 
community  which  comes  to  unite  those  who  work  to 
gether.  .  .  . 

The  last  caramel  was  done  at  noon.  They  put  on  their 
things,  wrapped  factory  clothes  in  bundles,  and  rather  awk 
wardly  they  bade  each  other  good-bye. 

Margaret  and  Felix  lingered  a  moment  after  the  others. 
They  looked  shyly  at  each  other,  and  she  held  out  her  hand. 
Felix  took  it. 

"  Good-bye  —  Felix,"  she  said.    Her  voice  trembled  a  little. 

"  Good-bye,  Margaret."  He  wanted  to  kiss  her,  but  he 
could  not.  ...  In  another  minute  she  was  gone. 


The  Break-Up  135 

Felix  turned  back  to  look  for  some  string  to  tie  his 
bundle,  and  then  went  home. 

3 

Felix's  father  returned  home  Sunday  noon,  alone.  It  had 
been  decided,  he  explained  casually,  in  answer  to  tbe  sur 
prised  enquiries  of  his  sons,  that  it  "  would  be  better  for 
Ma  to  stay  a  while  longer."  No,  she  was  pretty  well;  it 
wasn't  that.  They  just  thought  she  ought  to  stay  on. 

He  broke  into  a  humorous  account  of  the  doings  of  some 
of  his  old  cronies  in  Maple  and  Harden,  and  they  sat  down 
to  dinner.  Afterward,  he  lighted  his  old  pipe  and  his  talk 
slowly  came  around  to  the  point.  .  .  .  Jim  at  least  had  an 
ticipated  it  in  his  own  thoughts.  "  Ma's  pretty  comfortable 
where  she  is  ?  "  he  said,  rolling  a  cigarette. 

"  Yes,"  came  the  answer,  meditatively,  reflectively. 
*'  Susan  and  Jane  are  getting  pretty  old,  and  they  sort  of 
like  to  have  Ma  around.  There's  a  hired  girl  to  cook  and 
so  on.  They  sit  and  talk  and  knit.  .  .  ." 

Felix  had  visited  his  aunts  once,  and  had  a  memory  of  a 
curious  little  house  with  moss-roses  growing  beside  the  door, 
vines  on  the  windows,  and  a  little  garden  at  the  back,  where 
a  peacock  strutted.  He  thought  suddenly  of  the  fact  that 
his  mother  had  always  tried  to  train  vines  about  the  porch 
wherever  she  lived.  .  .  . 

"  She  seems  to  like  it  there,"  his  father  was  saying  slowly. 

"  Guess  she'd  better  stay  there,  eh  ?  "  said  Jim. 

"  I  guess  —  for  a  while,"  said  his  father. 

For  a  while !  Felix  suddenly  realized  the  meaning  of  this 
slow,  desultory  conversation.  The  four  years'  struggle  in 
Vickley  to  keep  the  family  together  had  failed.  .  .  . 

"  Well,"  Jim  said,  after  his  father  had  reminisced  at 
large  for  ten  minutes,  "  I  think  I'll  go  to  the  Soldier's  Home 
hospital  till  I  get  over  this  bad  spell." 

"  They'll  take  good  care  of  you,"  said  his  father.  Felix 
had  visited  the  Soldier's  Home  in  Vickley  with  his  father 


136  Moon-Calf 

several  times ;  it  seemed  strange  to  think  of  Jim  there,  wear 
ing  that  blue  uniform  .  .  .  and  yet  not  so  strange.  Felix 
smiled,  thinking  of  how  neat  that  uniform  would  always 
be. 

After  a  while  his  father  turned  to  Felix.  "  How  would 
you  like  to  stay  with  Ed,  in  Port  Royal  —  for  a  while  ?  " 

Felix  had  forgotten  to  consider  the  question  of  his  own 
destinies.  Of  course  something  must  be  done  with  him. 
And  of  course  Ed's  home  was  the  only  place.  "  Unless 
you'd  like  to  stay  with  your  mother  a  while  in  the  coun 
try?" 

"  No,"  said  Felix.  "  I'd  rather  go  to  Ed's  —  if  he  doesn't 
mind." 

"  It's  just  for  a  few  months,  you  know,"  said  his  father. 

Presently  Mr.  Fay  announced  his  own  plans.  *'  Alex  " — 
Alex  was  his  oldest  brother,  now  in  charge  of  the  old  farm  — 
"  would  like  to  have  me  work  around  there  for  a  while. 
It'll  be  not  so  far  away  from  Ma,  for  one  thing." 

So  it  was  decided.     They  smoked  and  talked  casually  on. 

4 

There  came  speedily  a  letter  from  Ed,  and  Alice,  his  wife, 
warmly  welcoming  Felix.  Jim  had  gone  to  the  hospital  a 
week  ago,  and  his  father  had  done  all  he  could  to  see  him 
comfortably  settled. 

A  "  For  Rent "  sign  had  been  tacked  on  the  house.  To 
morrow  it  would  be  vacated.  Felix  had  in  his  pocket  a 
ticket  for  a  passage  to  Port  Royal  on  the  steamer  "  Bald 
Eagle."  The  same  morning  his  father  would  go  back  to  the 
old  farm. 

Tonight  they  wandered  about  the  dismantled  house,  fin 
ishing  their  preparation  for  the  journey.  Felix  was  brood 
ing  in  the  front  room,  where  a  candle  standing  on  a  barrel 
shed  a  yellow  light  and  made  strange  shadows  on  the  carpet- 
less  floor,  the  bare  walls,  the  stripped  windows.  From  the 
next  room  came  the  noise  of  wrenching,  and  Felix  knew  that 


The  Break-Up  137 

his  father  was  taking  another  leaf  out  of  the  table  —  that 
great  table  which  had  contracted  leaf  by  leaf  as  the  family 
dwindled. 

There  was  a  sound  of  voices  in  the  other  room,  and  Felix 
knew  that  some  one  had  come  after  the  table.  The  furniture 
—  such  of  it  as  was  any  good  —  had  been  lent  to  the  neigh 
bours  to  save  storage  charges.  Only  a  few  things,  some 
bedding  and  books  and  dishes,  were  being  packed  to  send 
to  Port  Royal. 

His  father  appeared  suddenly  in  the  doorway.  "  Are  you 
ready  for  the  bonfire?"  he  asked. 

Felix  followed  him  into  the  back  yard.  There,  in  the 
middle  of  a  big  piece  of  oilcloth  ripped  from  the  kitchen 
floor,  was  a  pile  of  broken  chairs,  old  hats  and  shoes,  news 
papers,  rags.  .  .  .  His  father  stirred  one  corner  of  the  pile 
with  his  foot,  scattering  a  mass  of  old  buttons,  small  card 
board  boxes,  almost  empty  spools  of  thread,  pincushions, 
letters,  receipted  bills,  skeins  of  wool,  broken  scissors.  .  .  . 
"  I  just  emptied  Ma's  bureau  drawers  in  here,  without  trying 
to  sort  them  out,"  he  said.  How  fiercely,  Felix  thought, 
she  had  defended  that  accumulation  of  litter  while  she  was 
here !  That  saving  of  useless  things  was  a  part  of  her  val 
iant  struggle  to  keep  things  going  —  and  now  that  struggle 
was  ended. 

Felix's  father  had  turned  to  contemplate  something  else. 
"  Look,"  he  said,  "  at  this  blessed  object."  It  was  Ma's 
"  what-not."  He  stood  over  it,  his  head  cocked  on  one  side 
drolly,  his  little  legs  far  apart,  looking  like  a  fat,  aged  robin 
philosophizing  over  a  dead  caterpillar.  "  Nobody  will  take 
it,"  he  said.  "  Nobody  wants  it.  I  don't  blame  'em.  Is  it 
any  use  on  God's  earth,  I  ask  you  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Felix. 

"Well,  what  shall  we  do  with  it?"  his  father  asked  ir 
resolutely. 

u  Throw  it  away,"  said  Felix. 

"  We've  moved  it  seventeen  times,"  said  his  father,  giving 


138 


Moon-Calf 


it  a  shake.  The  dust  flew  out  of  the  crevices  of  its  antique 
ugliness.  "  Seems  like  foolishness  to  send  it  to  Port  Royal," 
he  mused.  Yet  he  hardly  dared  to  destroy  it. 

"  Throw  it  away,"  repeated  Felix  fiercely. 

"All  right.  Just  as  you  say."  He  picked  up  one  end 
and  marched  over  to  the  pile,  the  dusty  scales  of  the  monster 
trailing  after  him.  It  finished  the  heap. 

"  Take  hold,"  he  said. 

They  marched  down  the  short  dark  alley  with  their  bur 
den,  and  emptied  it  at  the  edge  of  a  gulley.  A  crescent 
moon  was  riding  behind  swift  clouds,  and  its  light  showed 
the  tin  can  littered  slope,  the  bluff  beyond  with  its  tufts  of 
brown  grass,  and  a  little  tree  which  clung  to  the  edge  of  the 
bluff,  lifting  itself  away  from  the  dark  hollow  beneath. 
While  his  father  knelt  arranging  the  bonfire,  Felix  followed 
the  path  down  into  the  hollow  and  up  on  the  bluff  beyond. 
Beneath,  he  could  see  the  black  shapes  of  factories,  the  long 
rows  of  freight  cars  on  the  siding,  and  past  that  the  river, 
fringed  at  the  farther  side  by  a  low  dark  rim  of  wooded  land. 
Felix  knew  the  exact  shape  of  that  horizon.  He  had  lain 
there  on  the  bluff  in  the  afternoons  of  summer,  and  watched 
the  sun  sink  through  bank  after  bank  of  gorgeous  cloud 
until  it  cut  into  the  horizon  with  its  golden  edge.  He  re 
membered  the  shifting  crimson,  orange,  purple  and  green  of 
that  western  sky  as  one  remembers  music.  He  stood  there 
a  long  while,  thinking  of  it,  and  of  the  thoughts  that  had 
enchanted  him  as  he  had  watched  it.  Suddenly  into  his 
mind  came  a  phrase  with  all  the  magic  of  those  old  thoughts 
in  it.  He  repeated  it  over  to  himself :  "  .  .  .  when  the  be 
ings  that  are  yet  within  the  loins  of  man  shall  stand  erect 
upon  the  earth  and  stretch  out  their  hands  among  the 
stars.  .  .  ."  He  made  a  queer,  harsh  gesture  with  his  thin 
arms,  as  if  he  were  reaching  out  to  touch  the  stars.  And  an 
other  word  floated  into  his  mind  from  somewhere,  or  no 
where,  a  word  that  had  all  the  splendour  of  those  sunsets 
in  it.  He  whispered  it  softly  to  himself:  "  Superman!" 

The  what-not  was  snapping  and  crackling  in  the  blaze 


The  Break-Up  139 

when  he  returned.  They  silently  fed  the  fire  with  the  re 
mains  of  the  stuff  they  had  brought.  It  mounted  higher, 
casting  a  red  glare  down  into  the  gulley,  which  was  reflected 
back  from  tin  cans  and  broken  bottles.  The  wind  blew 
stronger,  and  the  fire  made  a  little  roaring  noise.  The  tree 
that  clung  to  the  side  of  the  bluff  swayed  to  the  touch  of  the 
wind,  drooping  over  the  gulley  and  pulling  itself  back  from 
it,  wrestling  and  whining.  The  moon  was  overwhelmed  with 
black  clouds.  The  two  figures  drew  nearer  to  the  fire. 

*'  I've  got  to  go,"  said  Felix  suddenly.     "  I  want  to  say 
good-bye  to  a  friend."     He  hurried  off. 

5 

But  Stephen  was  not  at  Joe's,  where  he  had  promised  to 
be  that  night  for  their  last  talk.  After  waiting  a  long  time, 
and  consuming  several  sandwiches  that  he  did  not  want, 
Felix  reluctantly  decided  to  believe  that  Stephen  was  not 
:oming.  Doubtless  something  very  important  had  happened 
".o  keep  him  from  coming  —  so  Felix  told  himself  as  he 
walked  disconsolately  homeward.  What  could  it  have  been? 
Felix  could  not  think  of  anything  important  enough  to  keep 
lim  away.  And  then  Felix  remembered  something ;  Stephen 
lad  been  talking  a  good  deal  lately  about  another  friend 
)f  his,  a  young  engineer  who  had  just  come  back  from  an 
jxciting  journey  of  exploration  in  South  America.  Felix 
lad  been  invited  to  meet  him,  and  had  declined.  He  was 
lot  interested  in  the  adventures  of  engineering.  Stephen 
lad  originally  planned  to  dine  with  his  engineering  friend 
onight,  but  when  he  had  learned  that  this  was  to  be  Felix's 
ast  evening  in  Vickley,  he  had  said,  "  Oh,  well,  some  other 
ime  will  do  for  Quinn."  Felix  remembered  this,  and  felt 
hat  he  understood  the  reason  why  Stephen  had  not  come. 
Aery  well ;  it  only  meant  that  Stephen  was  not  as  much  his 
riend  as  he  had  thought.  But  he  might  have  let  him 
now.  .  .  . 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders ;  he  dismissed  the  matter  from 
is  mind.  The  fact  was  that  it  hurt  too  much  to  think 


140  Moon-Calf 

about.  Nor  did  he  dare  to  interpose  suppositions  in 
Stephen's  defence,  for  fear  of  the  disappointment  which 
must  ensue  when  he  had  examined  and  found  them  worth 
less.  He  dared  not  believe  in  Stephen's  friendship,  pre 
cisely  because  he  wanted  to  so  much.  Because  it  was  so 
precious  a  thing  to  him,  it  fell  at  the  first  touch.  He  hard 
ened  himself,  cancelled  the  friendship,  and  put  Stephen  out 
of  his  thoughts.  On  the  way  home  he  stopped  at  the  post- 
office  and  wrote  a  note  to  Margaret,  saying  that  he  was  going 
away  from  Vickley,  and  that  he  would  come  to  see  her  for 
a  moment  in  the  morning  before  he  took  the  boat.  .  .  . 

Next  morning,  after  the  boxes  of  household  goods  had 
gone  to  the  boat,  and  he  had  seen  his  father  off  on  the  train 
for  Harden,  Felix  went  to  see  Margaret.  He  had  known 
where  she  lived  ever  since  the  first  days  of  their  acquaintance 
at  the  factory;  and  more  than  once  since  the  factory  had 
shut  down  he  had  walked  past  her  home,  but  had  not  quite 
had  the  courage  to  go  in  to  see  her.  He  had  lacked  any 
excuse,  except  the  too  true  and  hence  quite  impossible  one 
that  he  loved  her.  And  the  more  he  stayed  away,  the  more 
impossible  it  became.  As  the  days  passed  since  that  last 
day  at  the  factory,  she  had  become  tantalizingly  alien  and 
mocking  in  his  imagination.  Without  her  sweet  and  friendly 
presence  to  reassure  him,  he  began  to  accuse  himself  of  in 
eptitude  in  his  behaviour  toward  her.  Things  that  Stephen 
had  said  —  things  that  people  were  always  saying  about 
girls  —  came  back  to  him,  and  he  wondered  if  he  had  not 
made  a  mistake  in  failing  to  make  love  to  her.  Had  she 
expected  it  ?  He  began  to  suspect  that  he  had  cut  a  ridicu 
lous  figure  in  her  eyes,  by  reason  of  his  timidity.  He  re 
membered  the  teasing  glance  with  which  she  had  once  parted 
from  him  at  the  door,  on  the  day  when  they  had  for  the 
first  —  and,  he  said  to  himself  with  a  pang  of  self-reproach, 
for  the  last  —  time,  held  each  other's  hands.  He  imagined 
her  as  laughing  at  him  for  not  kissing  her  then.  She  had 
wanted  him  to.  She  had  lifted  her  lips  like  a  flower  —  and 


The  Break-Up  141 

he  had  missed  his  chance.  He  had  never  had  the  chance 
again. 

She  had  offered  herself  once,  and  that  was  enough.  A 
stanza  from  an  old  ballad  came  to  his  mind  .  .  . 

"  There  is  a  flower  that  gleameth  bright, 
Some  call  it  marygold-a, 
And  he  that  wold  not  when  he  might, 
He  shall  not  when  he  wold-a! " 

Doubtless  she  had  dismissed  him  from  her  regard,  as  a  novice 
and  a  bungler.  ...  It  was  the  inrush  of  cold  accident  into 
his  life,  and  the  toppling  of  the  whole  structure  of  his  social 
existence  before  it,  that  evoked  again  his  childish  helpless 
ness  and  fear. 

But  yesterday,  after  the  bonfire  in  the  gulley,  and  the 
failure  of  Stephen  to  keep  their  appointment,  his  need  for 
love  brought  very  vividly  to  his  mind  the  warmth  and  sweet 
ness  of  Margaret's  friendship,  and  he  had  written  to  her,  if 
shyly,  yet  in  complete  confidence.  He  must  say  good-bye  to 
her  before  he  left.  An  anticipatory  dream  of  the  beauty  of 
that  farewell  filled  his  mind  as  he  went  to  her  home. 

It  was  a  neat  little  house  on  Grove  street,  set  back  in  a 
Peasant  yard.  Though  he  had  identified  it  before,  he  again 
nade  sure  of  the  number,  and  then  ran  up  to  the  door  and 
•ang  the  bell. 

A  kindly-looking  woman  opened  the  door.  He  asked,  a 
ittle  breathlessly,  for  Margaret.  He  did  not  say  who  he 
vas,  nor  did  Margaret's  mother  ask.  The  letter  which  he 
lad  sent  the  night  before  had  by  ill-luck  not  yet  been  de- 
ivered.  And  Margaret,  as  it  happened,  had  slept  late  after 

party  the  night  before,  and  had  just  come  sleepily  down 
tie  stairs  in  petticoat  and  chemise.  Her  mother  made  for 
er  what  seemed  to  be  the  best  answer.  "  She  isn't  at 
ome." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Felix,  bewildered,  and  backed  away.  The 
'oman  smiled,  and  closed  the  door.  Felix  started  slowly 


142  Moon-Calf 

back  to  the  gate.  He  saw  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  in 
postponing  his  visit  till  the  last  day,  and  coming  at  such  an 
hour.  Probably  she  was  at  work,  in  some  other  factory. 
Where?  If  he  knew,  he  might  still  go  to  see  her  there. 
He  wished  he  had  asked.  He  turned,  half  way  to  the  gate, 
and  looked  back  at  the  house  doubtfully.  Then  —  it  was 
only  for  a  fleeting  instant,  but  unmistakably  —  he  had  a 
glimpse  of  a  face  at  the  window.  Margaret's !  Two  black 
startled  eyes  gazing  at  him  —  and  then  gone.  He  hesitated, 
asking  himself  if  he  had  seen  truly  —  and  then  turned  and 
went  on. 

He  did  not  want  to  believe  what  he  had  seen.     It  hurt. 

He  passed  the  postman,  a  little  way  up  the  block,  bearing 
his  letter  to  Margaret.  Five  minutes  later,  hastily  dressed 
and  with  his  letter  in  her  hand,  Margaret  flew  down  to  the 
gate  and  looked  up  and  down  the  street.  But  Felix  was 
nowhere  in  sight. 

He  spent  his  last  two  hours  in  Vickley  wandering  discon 
solately  among  the  bookstacks  at  the  library.  Then  he  went 
to  the  dock  and  boarded  the  steamer  Bald  Eagle. 


Book  Three 
Port  Royal 


XV  Loneliness 


FELIX  made  his  entrance  into  Port  Royal  without  a 
hat.  He  had  lost  it  when  the  Bald  Eagle  made  a 
sudden  turn  around  the  bend  of  the  river  below  Port 
Royal.  Felix  had  not  noticed  what  was  happening,  and  the 
wind,  which  takes  such  delight  in  playing  jokes  on  absent- 
minded  people,  seized  his  hat  and  flung  it  gaily  overboard. 
Felix  had  not  noticed  the  change  in  the  course  of  the  boat 
because  he  was  thinking  intently  of  something  else.  He  was 
thinking  of  a  poem  he  had  made  up  about  Margaret  in  the 
interval  between  that  last  day  at  the  factory  and  his  ill- 
fated  visit  to  her  home.  He  had  not  wanted  to  think  of  it ; 
he  had  not  wanted  to  think  of  her  at  all.  He  tried  to  put 
her  utterly  out  of  his  mind.  But  gnawing  at  his  conscious 
ness  was  the  fact  that  he  had  a  copy  of  that  unfinished  poem 
in  his  pocket.  He  remembered  it  with  shame.  It  was  the 
sheerest  schoolboy  silliness,  he  realized  now.  He  blushed 
to  think  he  had  written  it.  He  thought  he  was  ashamed  of 
it  because  it  was  bad  poetry,  but  in  reality  he  was  ashamed 
because  it  was  a  confession  of  his  folly  in  having  cared  for 
her. 

A  day  ago  its  lines  had  glowed  golden  in  his  imagina 
tion;  now  they  were  only  a  record  of  and  a  rebuke  to  his 
vanity.  He  must  destroy  it.  He  took  it  out,  and  tore  it 
across. 

Then  he  decided  that  he  must  face  his  folly  —  and 
he  forced  himself  to  open  the  torn  paper  and  read  the  poem 
one  last  time  before  he  threw  it  away.  He  quivered  with 
the  self-inflicted  pain  as  he  read  the  mawkish  sentiments. 

145 


146  Moon-Calf 

/  envy  the  breezes  that  dally 

In  the  ringlets  of  thy  hair  — 

Those  wayward  locks  that  rippling  dow  > 

Are  jewels  of  the  ebon  crown 

That  decks  thy  brow  so  fair. 

"  My  God !  "  he  said.  He  could  force  himself  to  read  no 
further.  He  tore  the  paper  hastily  into  tiny  pieces,  and 
dropped  them  overboard  into  the  stream,  the  cleansing  stream 
which  carries  so  much  refuse  to  the  sea.  It  would  take 
away  these  torn  fragments  of  his  folly;  already  they  were 
lost  to  sight  —  and  he  would  be  free  for  ever  from  the 
painful  memory  of  it.  At  that  moment  the  wind  took  his 
hat. 

A  hat  is  singularly  a  part  of  one's  personality.  One  feels 
foolish  without  it.  Felix  felt  particularly  foolish.  It  was 
as  if  his  hatlessness  were  a  confession  to  the  world  of  the 
whole  painful  experience  he  had  just  gone  through.  He  had 
wanted  to  forget  it,  and  here  was  this  to  remind  him.  Peo 
ple  would  wonder  where  his  hat  was,  and  he  would  remem 
ber  how  he  had  come  to  lose  it.  Why  was  he  such  a  fool  ? 
With  a  sense  of  his  ridiculousness  he  stepped  off  the  gang 
plank  on  to  the  dock. 

His  brother  Ed  was  there  waiting  for  him,  an  eager  smile 
on  his  kindly  face.  *'  Were's  your  hat,  buddy?"  was  his 
greeting.  Felix  flushed  and  replied,  "  The  wind  blew  it  into 
the  river."  "  Well,  we'll  get  you  another  one,"  said  Ed,  and 
led  him  to  a  hat-store.  Decently  clothed  again  and  able  to 
look  his  fellow-men  in  the  face,  Felix  accompanied  his 
brother  home.  On  the  street  car  he  answered  questions 
about  the  family. 

Ed  lived  in  Sobieski  street,  within  walking  distance  of  the 
factory  where  he  worked.  They  soon  arrived  at  the  place. 
It  was  one  half  of  a  double  house  that  looked  exactly  like 
half  a  dozen  others  up  and  down  the  block  on  both  sides  of 
the  street.  It  was  distinguished  from  the  others  by  its  num 
ber —  1206  —  and  by  the  plaster  cast  of  George  Washington 
which  could  be  seen  between  the  lace  curtains  in  the  front 


Loneliness  147 

window.  Alice  met  them  at  the  door  and  kissed  Felix 
warmly.  She  sat  them  down  in  the  parlour,  and  Felix  an 
swered  all  the  questions  about  the  family  over  again.  Felix 
noted  on  the  walls  two  of  Ed's  old  drawings  —  one  the  pic 
ture  of  a  wounded  hawk  falling  from  the  sky  —  an  early 
picture,  a  memory  of  hunting  days  in  Maple ;  and  the  other 
a  recent  one,  a  very  wooden  copy  of  some  one's  celebrated 
painting  of  Pharaoh's  Horses.  On  the  sofa,  ranged  at 
careful  intervals,  were  cushions  embroidered  in  coloured 
silks  with  birds  and  flowers,  made  by  Alice  in  the  course  of 
many  patient  Sundays,  after  the  designs  set  forth  in  some 
woman's  magazine.  Above  the  mantelpiece,  for  some  mys 
terious  reason,  hung  a  blue  pennant  with  "  YALE  "  in  white 
letters.  There  was  a  book-case,  with  a  tea-set  in  it  which 
had  been  won  at  a  raffle  and  never  used.  There  was  a 
phonograph,  and  a  pile  of  records,  the  one  on  top  being 
"  Hello  Central  Give  Me  Heaven." 

Felix  regarded  this  milieu  with  a  secret  disdain  which  he 
could  not  understand.  He  ought  to  be  grateful  to  Ed  and 
Alice  for  giving  him  shelter;  but  he  only  felt  out  of  place, 
a  stranger.  His  mother's  house,  with  its  rickety  old  fur 
niture,  he  had  fled  from  to  the  more  congenial  atmosphere 
of  the  library ;  but  he  had  returned  to  it  as  to  his  own  place ; 
it  was  his  own  place  —  it  had  somehow  centred  about  him. 
His  mother  had  made  that  true.  This  was  not  his  home; 
he  was  an  unwilling  guest. 

After  he  had  been  shown  the  house,  he  was  led  out  into 
the  tiny  backyard,  where  Ed  had  planted  a  kitchen  garden 
which  yielded  six  kinds  of  vegetables.  Ed  was  very  proud 
of  it,  and  Felix  could  see  him  in  imagination  hurrying  home 
from  his  hard  day's  work  at  the  factory  to  dig  in  it.  "  Yes," 
said  Ed,  "  it  helps  out  a  lot." 

When  they  came  back  to  the  house  Felix  asked  casually 
where  he  had  better  look  for  work.  Ed  stared  at  him  in 
surprise,  and  Alice  answered  indignantly  that  he  was  not 
going  to  work,  he  was  going  to  school.  It  seemed  that  they 
had  taken  on  the  burden  of  the  family  tradition  that  Felix 


148  Moon-Calf 

must  '*  finish  his  education."  Then,  with  a  further  as 
sumption  of  maternal  privilege,  Alice  commented  on. the 
state  of  Felix's  clothes.  '*  Since  your  mother  has  been  away 
you  haven't  been  looked  after  properly,"  she  said.  It  was 
true,  his  trousers  were  not  pressed,  and  the  ends  of  his 
trouser-legs  were  frayed. 

"  You  must  take  care  of  your  clothes  if  you  want  to  look 
like  a  gentleman,"  she  said  smilingly. 

Felix  laughed,  and  Alice,  sensing  something  satiric  in  his 
laugh,  asked  a  little  sharply,  ''What's  so  funny?" 

"  The  idea  of  my  looking  like  a  gentleman,"  said  Felix. 

"  You  can  if  you  want  to,"  she  replied  reprovingly.  She 
liked  Felix.  If  he  paid  attention  to  what  he  was  told,  he 
would  be  a  very  nice  young  man. 

Alice .  returned  then  to  the  business  of  Sunday  dinner. 
After  it  was  over,  the  Underwoods  came  in  with  their  baby, 
and  Ed  went  for  some  beer.  Charley  Underwood  worked 
at  the  factory  with  Ed.  He  was  a  thin  young  man  with  a 
large  Adam's  apple.  His  wife  was  a  pale,  frail-looking 
girl.  Their  baby,  in  defiance  of  all  probability,  was  fat  and 
prodigiously  good-humoured.  It  lay  on  the  table  blinking 
and  beaming,  while  Mrs.  Underwood  and  Alice  talked  of 
fashions,  the  care  of  babies,  and  housework.  Then,  over 
the  beer,  they  talked  about  a  picnic  they  had  all  gone  on  last 
Sunday.  Finally  the  women  drifted  away  for  more  in 
timate  converse,  and  Ed  and  Charley  Underwood  talked 
baseball  and  politics.  They  were  both  ardent  partisans  of 
Teddy  Roosevelt  and  of  some  local  baseball  team. 

To  all  this  talk  Felix  had  nothing  to  contribute.  He 
evaded  their  occasional  efforts  to  draw  him  into  the  con 
versation,  and  sat  silent  and  moody,  watching  the  fat  Un 
derwood  baby,  so  unreasonably  happy  in  its  starched  white 
Sunday  clothes.  When  they  turned  on  the  phonograph,  he 
escaped  to  the  front  porch. 


Loneliness  149 


The  next  day  Felix  went  to  the  public  library.  It  seemed 
alien  and  inhospitable,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  everybody 
was  allowed  to  go  straight  to  the  book-stacks  and  pick  out 
their  books  for  themselves.  But  it  seemed  that  he  had 
lost  his  old  sense  of  refuge  among  books.  He  was  lonely. 

The  next  week,  school  opened.  The  strange  surround 
ings,  the  new  teachers,  the  different  text-books,  created  a 
brief  excitement  of  adjustment  for  Felix.  But  it  was  not 
long  before  he  found  himself  able  to  slip  through  the  school 
day  with  a  minimum  of  effort;  and  again,  with  a  world  of 
time  on  his  hands,  he  found  himself  lonely  and  unhappy. 

In  spite  of  his  determination  to  put  Margaret  out  of  his 
mind,  he  thought  more  than  once  of  writing  to  her.  Some 
times  he  thought  he  would  ask  for  an  explanation  of  her 
refusal  to  see  him  that  morning;  and  again  he  thought  he 
would  treat  the  matter  as  a  joke,  or  else  ignore  it  alto 
gether.  The  trouble  was  that  there  were  two  Margarets  — 
one  the  girl  he  had  known,  and  to  whom  he  wished  to  write 
in  all  confidence;  the  other  that  strange,  mocking  creature 
whom  he  had  glimpsed  at  the  window,  and  whom  he  wanted 
never  to  think  of  again.  He  could  not  decide  which  of 
them  was  the  true  Margaret;  and  he  ended  by  accepting 
both  as  true  —  one  in  the  world  of  his  dreams  and  the  other 
in  the  world  of  reality.  He  would  not  write  to  the  Margaret 
who  inhabited  the  hostile  world  of  reality;  but  he  would 
write  to  the  other,  and  not  send  the  letters.  He  did;  and 
once,  on  a  sudden  impulse,  he  carried  a  bundle  of  these  let 
ters  down  to  the  letter  box  at  the  corner,  determined  to 
send  them  and  see  what  happened ;  but  as  he  raised  his  hand 
to  the  box  a  cold  fear  stopped  him,  and  he  hurried  home  and 
burned  the  letters,  and  thereafter  wrote  no  more  of  them. 

Instead,  he  wandered  about  the  streets.  One  Saturday 
he  came  upon  an  "  Art  Gallery  " —  so  denominated  by  a 
small  placard  in  the  window.  Entering,  Felix  found  on 
the  bare  walls  of  the  empty  room  no  sign  of  art,  but  the 


150  Moon-Calf 

gentle  old  man  who  came  hurrying  out  of  a  little  room  at 
the  back  informed  him  that  the  place  had  been  converted 
into  a  reading-room.  There  were  no  signs  of  anything  to 
read,  but  upon  further  inquiry  by  Felix  the  old  man  said  he 
would  show  him  some  books  and  papers.  He  hesitated 
about  doing  this,  however,  and  finally  confessed  that  the 
place  had  now  become  a  lecture-hall.  This  suited  Felix 
quite  as  well,  and  he  demanded  to  know  what  the  lectures 
were  about. 

In  a  low  voice,  after  an  appreciable  pause,  the  old  man 
replied,  "  Atheism !  " —  and  stepped  back  to  observe  the  ef 
fect  of  this  word  upon  his  visitor. 

Felix  was  delighted.  Was  it  possible  that  there  were 
enough  Atheists  in  Port  Royal  to  hold  public  meetings? 
Yes,  there  were  twenty-nine,  he  was  told.  To  Felix  this 
seemed  like  a  large  number.  Unconsciously  he  imaged 
twenty-nine  people  like  himself  and  Stephen  and  Margaret. 
It  seemed  too  beautiful  to  be  true. 

When  was  the  next  meeting? 

Wednesday  night;  would  he  come? 

He  would. 

3 

He  did. 

He  came  happily,  with  a  grateful  sense  of  having  at  last 
re-found  a  part  of  the  life  he  had  left  behind  in  Vickley. 
He  realized  now  what  a  varied  and  complex  and  humanly 
attached  life  he  had  led  for  the  past  few  months  back  there. 
He  had  been  part  of  the  human  process  —  and  for  the  first 
time,  gladly  a  part  of  it.  The  severance  of  those  bonds  had 
left  him  feeling  strangely  isolate.  He  had,  without  realiz 
ing  it,  lost  his  old  self-sufficiency;  he  had  known,  obscurely 
but  satisfyingly,  the  feeling  of  communion  with  the  race. 
And  then  suddenly  he  was  detached  and  flung  out  into  an 
utterly  alien  world. 

Once  upon  a  time  his  loneliness  had  been  only  fear  and 
dislike  of  the  world.  Now  loneliness  was  a  need,  an  ache,  a 
desperate  inarticulate  yearning. 


Loneliness  151 

He  was  the  first  to  arrive  at  the  "  Art  Gallery,"  except 
the  old  proprietor  himself,  who  was  busy  setting  out  folding 
chairs  for  the  audience  when  Felix  entered.  It  was  a  beau 
tiful  October  evening,  with  a  full  moon  that  transfigured 
the  streets  and  houses,  and  a  warm  wind  that  was  laden 
with  the  scent  of  dead  leaves  and  the  smoky  incense  of  bon 
fires.  But  Felix  hurried  in  gladly  to  the  meeting-place,  and 
eagerly  helped  the  old  man  set  the  chairs  for  the  audience, 
which  began  to  drift  in,  one  by  one.  First  was  a  stout 
German  who,  as  he  informed  Felix,  kept  a  delicatessen 
store.  He  was,  the  old  proprietor  explained,  a  new  addi 
tion  to  their  ranks;  his  hatred  of  preachers  had  been  dis 
covered  in  a  conversation  over  the  counter,  and  the  hospi 
tality  of  the  Agnostic  Society  had  been  extended  to  him. 
He  seemed  a  little  ill-at-ease,  and  explained  to  Felix  that 
he  had  been  very  much  interested  in  these  subjects  when 
he  was  a  young  man  in  Germany ;  since  coming  to  America 
he  had  been  busy  earning  a  living  and  had  got  out  of  touch 
with  "  de  Agnostik  mofement."  But  he  disliked  the  way 
preachers  were  always  trying  to  close  the  saloons.  A  little 
beer  did  nobody  any  harm. 

Felix  politely  agreed,  and  was  introduced  in  turn  to  six 
others.  One  man  kept  a  second-hand  book  store,  another 
was  an  accountant  in  a  bank,  and  a  third  was  a  Jewish 
tailor;  these  three  were  all  small,  stoop-shouldered  and 
past  middle  age.  Then  came  a  woman,  a  shrivelled  old 
lady  with  bright  eyes,  mussy  grey  hair,  and  a  partial  deaf 
ness  which  kept  one  bony  hand  always  to  her  ear.  A  young 
workingman,  tired  but  intelligent-looking,  hurried  in,  looked 
disappointed  at  the  small  number  of  people  present,  and 
distributed  handbills  announcing  a  public  meeting  shortly 
to  be  held  in  defence  of  some  labour-leader  somewhere  who 
had  been  unjustly  sent  to  prison.  He  talked  to  Felix  about 
this  in  a  heated  but  reasonable  way,  and  Felix  tried  to  follow 
his  argument;  but  the  young  man  made  the  mistake  of 
assuming  that  Felix  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  and 
Felix  was  ashamed  to  admit  his  ignorance,  so  th*,  whole 


152  Moon-Calf 

thing  remained  rather  obscure.  Last  of  all  there  came  a 
sleek,  rather  pompous  man,  dressed  in  an  old  frock-coat. 
He  spoke  to  every  one  with  a  slightly  orotund  and  oratorical 
voice.  This  was  the  lecturer  of  the  evening.  He  handed 
Felix  one  of  his  cards,  from  which  it  appeared  that  he  was 
by  profession  a  doctor. 

These  nine  people  sat  about  for  half  an  hour,  waiting  for 
more  to  come ;  and  when  at  last  it  was  agreed  that  no  more 
were  coming,  the  lecturer  mounted  the  rostrum,  and  a  hush 
fell  upon  the  little  assembly. 

"  The  subject  of  my  talk  this  evening,"  began  the  lecturer 
suavely,  "  is  Christian  Lies." 

He  let  this  sink  in,  and  then  began  to  quote  a  passage 
from  Genesis.  "  And  God  said,  If  ye  eat  of  the  fruit  of 
that  tree,  ye  shall  surely  die."  But,  asked  the  lecturer  im 
pressively,  did  they  die  ?  They  did  not !  The  Bible  ad 
mitted  that  they  did  not.  The  Bible  contradicted  God.  He 
would  leave  it  to  his  audience  which  was  the  most  worthy 
of  credence. 

The  audience  tittered  a  little,  and  the  deaf  old  lady  asked 
the  man  next  to  her  what  he  had  said.  She  was  told,  and 
nodded  bright  approval.  . 

The  lecturer  went  on  right  through  the  books  of  the 
Bible,  from  Genesis  to  Revelations,  not  neglecting  Jonah 
and  the  whale.  There  was  something  oddly  familiar  about 
the  lecturer's  technique;  it  haunted  Felix's  mind,  until  sud 
denly  he  remembered  that  book,  back  in  his  past,  which  had 
essayed  the  destruction  of  Atheism  —  the  book  which  a 
preacher  had  lent  him.  It  was  the  same  method.  You 
proved  that  Atheists  were  fools,  and  that  Christians  were 
fools,  in  just  the  same  way.  That  book  had  had  upon 
Felix  an  effect  opposite  to  the  one  intended;  and  this  lec 
ture — 

Felix  wished  the  lecturer  would  talk  about  something 
else.  He  knew  that  every  one  in  the  audience  knew  already 
all  that  the  lecturer  was  telling  them.  Yet  they  sat  and 
listened  to  it  with  apparent  pleasure.  There  was  something 


Loneliness  153 

oddly  reminiscent  about  that,  too.  The  analogy  flashed 
upon  his  mind.  It  was  like  a  church ! 

The  lecturer  paused  and  asked  for  questions.  Under  the 
guise  of  asking  questions,  the  three  small,  elderly,  hump- 
shouldered  men  got  up  and  made  speeches.  The  second 
hand  book  dealer  pointed  out  that  the  Christian  religion  was 
made  up  piecemeal  of  dozens  of  other  religions.  Somehow 
he  reminded  Felix  of  Solomon  in  one  of  his  more  depressed 
moods,  declaring  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun. 
The  Jewish  tailor,  like  a  minor  prophet,  rose  and  prophesied 
woe  to  the  hypocrites  and  robbers  who  thought  that  by 
building  churches  and  sending  missionaries  to  the  heathen 
they  could  cleanse  themselves  of  their  own  sins.  The  ac 
countant  made  a  more  philosophical  and  at  the  same  time  a 
more  dismal  speech,  pointing  out  in  sad  tones  the  rashness 
of  those  who  sought  to  know  what  Herbert  Spencer  had 
declared  to  be  the  Unknowable.  So  far  as  we  could  tell, 
he  said,  progress  was  the  chance  result  of  blind  forces,  the 
existence  of  the  human  race  an  accident,  and  the  earth  itself 
a  speck  of  dust  in  an  incomprehensible  chaos.  In  short,  he 
seemed  to  Felix  to  agree  with  Ecclesiastes  that  All  Is  Vanity. 

The  lecturer  jumped  up.  He  had  more  to  say,  it  seemed. 
Felix  did  not  really  feel  that  he  cared  to  hear  it.  He  rose 
and  stole  quietly  out,  preceded  by  the  young  workingman 
and  followed  by  the  delicatessen  store  keeper. 

The  three  halted  upon  the  steps,  and  looked  at  each  other. 

"  I've  got  to  beat  it  to  a  committee  meeting,"  said  the 
young  workingman  impatiently. 

The  delicatessen  store  keeper  sighed.  "  I  guess  I  go  home 
and  drink  a  little  beer  and  go  to  bed,"  he  said. 

They  wandered  off  in  different  directions. 

Felix  watched  them  go  with  an  obscure  sense  of  envy. 
At  least  they  had  somewhere  to  go. 

He  had  nowhere.     This  refuge,  too,  had  failed  him. 

And  then  a  tormenting  and  yet  intoxicating  stanza  rose 
in  his  mind,  a  fragment  of  a  poem  he  had  read  in  a  mag 
azine  at  the  library.  He  suspected  that  it  was  bad  poetry 


Moon-Calf 

—  romantic  foolishness,  almost  as  absurd  as  that  stuff  he 
had  torn  in  pieces  and  thrown  into  the  river  that  day  on 
the  Bald  Eagle.  But  still  it  tormented  and  soothed  him, 
and  he  said  the  lines  over  to  himself  as  he  walked  home 
ward: 

"  Give  me  thy  lips,  and  from  my  own  that  trembling 
Meet  their  warm  breath,  dash  the  cold  cup  of  pain; 
Their  dewy  fire  shall  melt  all  my  dissembling 
As  Polish  frosts  die  in  the  tropic  rain! " 


XVI  Rhythms 


ONCE  more,  against  his  will,  he  found  himself  think 
ing  of  Margaret.  A  great  rush  of  longing,  break 
ing  down  the  barrier  of  assumed  indifference, 
swept  over  him,  and  he  yielded  himself  to  poignant  memories 
of  the  days  he  had  left  behind.  He  went  about  painfully 
entranced  with  dreams  of  the  past.  But  still  these  dreams 
would  be  shot  through  now  and  then  with  intimations  of  an 
alien  and  hostile  reality.  He  tried  to  face  the  question 
of  what  Margaret  was  really  like.  But  the  only  way  to  end 
the  debate  in  his  mind  was  to  write  to  her,  and  he  dared  not 
do  that. 

Then,  as  if  by  some  medicinal  instinct,  he  turned  to  poetry, 
the  thing  which  had  reawakened  the  sleeping  hurt  in  his 
mind,  for  some  cure  of  it ;  and  he  began  to  find  consolation 
in  the  measured  beauty  of  lines  which  expressed  his  own 
doubts  and  desires.  The  debate  over  Margaret  yielded  place 
to  an  enthusiasm  which  was  in  itself  to  a  large  extent  simply 
a  more  magnificent  expression  of  just  such  a  debate.  He 
went  about  with  a  mind  stored  with  splendid  sonorities. 
Late  at  night  he  might  be  seen,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  dressed  in 
an  ill-fitting  blue  serge  suit,  walking  along  the  bridge  that 
extended  over  the  Mississippi  River  from  Port  Royal  to 
Stone  Island.  Policemen  would  pass  at  intervals,  swinging 
their  clubs,  pairs  of  late  lovers  would  emerge  slowly  from 
the  darkness  into  the  glare  of  an  arc-light.  He  went  past 
them,  walking  rapidly,  his  head  bent.  Where  the  bridge 
came  to  an  end,  a  stone  walk  began  that  skirted  the  end  of 
the  Island  toward  Garth,  where  the  darkness  was  burst 
open  at  sudden  intervals  by  the  scarlet  flare  of  a  blasting- 

155 


156  Moon-Calf 

furnace.  Felix  paused  and  leaned  over  the  parapet.  .  .  . 
Was  it  Margaret  there  at  the  window  that  day?  Had  she 
recognized  him?  .  .  .  He  put  up  a  hand  to  a  wet  forehead 
and  brushed  back  his  damp  hair.  A  phrase  glimmered  into 
his  mind,  five  words  from  some  poem  — "  moon  nor  cold  nor 
dew" — and  he  straightened  his  shoulders  and  turned  to 
wards  home.  "Nor  all  cold  things  can  purge  me  wholly 
through!'  His  strides  grew  longer,  keeping  time  to  the 
majestic  rhythm  of  the  lines.  "Assuage  me  nor  allay  me 
nor  appease."  He  whispered  them  over  and  over.  "  Till 
supreme  sleep  shall  bring  me  bloodless  ease"  The  police 
man  passed,  eyeing  him  sharply,  unnoticed.  "Lotus  and 
Lethe  on  my  lips  like  dew"  The  lovers,  overtaken,  stepped 
from  his  path  impatiently.  "  Thick  darkness  and  the  in 
superable  sea" 

Behind  him  the  furnace  flares  lighted  the  sky  at  lurid  in 
tervals.  His  solitary  tramp  sounded  noisily  on  the  bridge. 
He  emerged  from  the  fantastic  shadowy  tangle  of  girders, 
upon  the  streets  of  Port  Royal.  Bathed  in  an  enchantment 
of  beauty,  he  walked  swiftly  along  the  homeward  streets, 
whispering  aloud  the  words  that  eased  his  heart. 


Sometimes,  as  he  walked,  rhythms  rather  than  words 
came  into  his  mind,  rhythms  which  he  could  not  identify 
with  any  poem  he  knew,  and  he  fitted  words  to  them  — 
words  meaninglessly  beautiful.  These  fragments  of  beauty 
snatched  somehow  out  of  the  void  intoxicated  him  bound 
lessly.  New  rhythms  sang  themselves  into  place  beside  the 
old,  and  new  words  suddenly  glimmered  into  being.  He  did 
not  realize  that  these  things  had  any  relation  to  the  art  of 
poetry.  They  were  to  him  simply  a  kind  of  blessed  drunk 
enness. 

And  as  he  walked,  in  the  afternoons  and  evenings,  mak 
ing  these  queer,  formless  poems,  he  began  to  look  about  him 
and  take  note  of  what  he  saw.  Port  Royal  was  one  of 
three  river  towns  which  lay  close  together  —  Garth  and 


Rhythms  157 

Stevenson  side  by  side  on  the  eastern  shore,  opposite  Port 
Royal,  with  Stone  Island  and  its  government  arsenal  nosing 
in  between.  The  three  towns,  so  closely  united,  were  al 
most  one  city;  but  yet  they  were  as  unlike  each  other  as 
possible.  Stevenson  was  commonplace  and  uninteresting. 
Garth  was  a  nightmare  —  the  inconceivably  hideous  product 
of  unrestricted  commercial  enterprise;  its  centre  was  oc 
cupied  by  the  vast,  bare,  smoke-begrimed  structures  of  the 
greatest  plough-factory  on  earth ;  a  little  fringe  of  desultory 
shops,  insulted  and  apparently  pushed  aside  by  incessantly 
switching  trains  of  freight  cars,  gave  way  to  a  drab,  monot 
onous  area  of  cheap  and  hastily-constructed  workingmen's 
dwellings,  each  house  exactly  like  the  next,  street  after 
street  and  mile  after  mile  —  while  afar,  set  almost  inac 
cessibly  upon  the  hills  like  the  castles  of  robber  barons, 
could  be  discerned  the  houses  where  the  plough-magnates 
lived.  The  town  of  Port  Royal  was  like  neither  of  these 
towns. 

It  had  a  kindlier  aspect.  Its  long  tree-shaded  streets,  its 
great  parks,  its  public  buildings,  even  its  shops  and  homes  — 
even,  after  his  first  jaundiced  impressions  had  been  for 
gotten,  the  very  street  on  which  Felix  lived  —  had  a  kind  of 
dignity  and  serenity,  as  though  in  this  town  it  was  under 
stood  that  life  was  meant  to  be  enjoyed.  Felix  began  to 
feel  that  he  could  be  happy  in  Port  Royal. 


It  was  while  he  was  immersed  in  such  a  mood  of  unwonted 
confidence  in  Port  Royal,  that  he  picked  up  one  afternoon 
on  the  street  a  little  red-covered  pamphlet.  It  was  a  Social 
ist  pamphlet.  But  of  all  possible  introductions  to  Socialism 
it  was  the  strangest ;  and  to  Felix  the  most  alluring  one  that 
could  have  been  devised.  It  said  not  a  word  about  eco 
nomics.  It  told  about  Greek  ideals  of  beauty  in  art  and 
life ;  and  it  was  illustrated  with  photographs  of  two  Greek 
statues,  the  Venus  of  Melos  and  the  Discus-Thrower,  which 
were  interpreted  in  the  text  as  examples  of  the  gloriously 


158  Moon-Calf 

alive  and  happy  nature  of  Greek  manhood  and  womanhood. 

To  desire  to  live  like  that  —  to  want  a  world  in  which 
such  life  was  possible  —  to  be  willing  to  put  aside  whatever 
institutions,  ideas,  beliefs,  denied  men  and  women  such 
lives :  this  was  to  be  a  Socialist. 

Felix  remembered  what  Margaret  had  told  him  one  day 
in  the  factory  —  that  he  was  a  Socialist.  If  what  this 
pamphlet  said  was  true,  then  of  course  he  was  a  Socialist. 

He  pondered  the  pamphlet.  Its  discovery  proved  the 
existence  of  Socialists  in  Port  Royal.  He  must  find  them. 

It  occurred  to  him  to  ask  his  brother  Ed.  Oh,  yes,  Ed 
replied,  he  had  heard  of  them  here. —  Did  they  have  meet 
ings  ?  Ed  supposed  so. —  Where  ?  Why,  probably  at 
Turner  Hall.—  Ah ! 

Felix  went  to  Turner  Hall  the  next  afternoon.  It  was  an 
imposing  building,  with  four  entrances.  Felix  hesitated, 
then  entered  one  of  them  at  random.  It  gave  upon  the 
lobby  of  a  theatre.  The  man  in  the  box-office  knew  the 
prices  of  seats  for  the  German  play  that  was  to  be  given 
there  that  night;  but  apparently  he  knew  nothing  else. 

So  Felix  tried  the  next  entrance,  and  found  himself  sud 
denly  in  a  gymnasium,  where  a  bloomered  class  of  young 
women  were  at  that  moment  engaged  in  turning  handsprings. 
The  director  plainly  regarded  Felix  as  a  rash  intruder,  and 
refused  to  give  him  any  information  about  anything.  So 
Felix  backed  out,  apologizing. 

The  third  entrance  revealed  a  flight  of  steps.  Felix  went 
up.  At  the  first  landing  he  encountered  what  seemed  to  be 
the  janitor ;  but  the  man  seemed  not  to  understand  English 
very  well,  so  Felix  explored  for  himself.  There  were  many 
lodge-halls  at  the  top  of  the  first  flight  of  stairs,  with  no 
sign  to  indicate  that  any  of  them  was  a  Socialist  meeting 
place.  Felix  went  on  from  door  to  door,  entering  and 
looking  about.  He  did  not  know  exactly  what  he  was  look 
ing  for ;  but  whatever  it  was,  he  failed  to  find  it.  Neverthe 
less  he  continued  to  look,  and  having  exhausted  the  pos 
sibilities  of  that  floor,  went  on  to  the  next  and  the  next. 


Rhythms  159 

On  the  top  floor  he  broke  in  upon  an  assembly  of  German 
matrons.  They  seemed  angry  and  suspicious,  and  Felix 
went  downstairs  in  great  embarrassment. 

But  he  had  not  given  up.  There  was  still  another  en 
trance. 

It  opened  upon  a  saloon.  The  busy  bartender  admitted 
that  he  had  heard  of  the  Socialists,  and  in  a  reflective  in 
terval  in  the  serving  of  drinks  he  seemed  to  remember  that 
they  met  on  Fridays  —  in  just  which  hall  he  couldn't  say. 

4 

On  Friday  evening  Felix  stood  again  in  front  of  the 
building.  A  multitude  of  people  came  and  went,  in  and  out. 
There  was  something  discouragingly  real  about  these  people, 
something  emphatically  unlike  what  he  wanted  Socialists 
to  be.  Suddenly  doubting,  but  with  an  access  of  stubborn 
ness,  he  followed  them  up  the  winding  stairway,  and  watched 
them  enter  one  and  another  of  the  little  halls.  He  conceived 
the  project  of  knocking  and  inquiring  at  each  door  in  turn. 
The  number  of  doors,  however  large,  was  still  finite,  and  in 
time  he  would  come  to  the  right  one.  But  the  too-too  solid 
aspect  of  the  people  he  saw  within,  sobered  him.  He  could 
not  face  their  stolid  unimaginative  stares  forty  times.  He 
went  slowly  downstairs,  and  again  took  up  his  position  by  the 
door.  But  now  he  was  too  discouraged  to  ask  any  one  for 
news  of  what  he  wanted  to  know;  he  waited,  as  if  he  were 
expecting  some  one  to  come  up  and  tell  him.  Perhaps  his 
feeling  was  that  if  there  were  such  people  in  Port  Royal  as 
the  little  red  pamphlet  had  described,  they  would  recognize 
their  fellow  in  him.  But  no  one  came  up  and  greeted  him. 
No  one  recognized  him  for  a  seeker  after  that  lost  Greek 
beauty  of  flamelike  life. 

At  last  he  went  home.  But  next  Friday  evening,  having 
nothing  better  to  do,  he  went  again,  this  time  without  any 
confidence,  and  with  only  a  faint  hope  which  he  was  ashamed 
to  credit.  He  hung  about  the  doorway  till  the  crowd  thinned 
and  ceased,  and  the  street  was  deserted.  And  then,  when 


160  Moon-Calf 

Felix  was  wondering  whether  he  should  keep  up  his  futile 
and  foolish  vigil,  a  man  came  out,  paused,  and  looked  at 
Felix  in  a  friendly  way.  He  was  a  young  man,  with  a 
slender  figure,  delicate  hands,  and  a  sensitive,  intelligent 
foreign-looking  face.  Felix  instantly  imagined  him  to  be  a 
poet,  a  man  whom  it  would  be  delightful  to  know.  He 
stared  at  the  man  intently,  and  then  became  embarrassed  as 
he  realized  what  he  was  doing. 

The  man  smiled  in  what  seemed  to  Felix  a  faintly  satiric 
way,  and  then  turned  and  sniffed  eagerly  at  the  evening 
breeze.  "  Too  beautiful  a  night,"  he  said,  "  to  stay  indoors 
at  a  committee  meeting !  " 

Felix  afterward  reconstructed  the  incident  in  his  imagina 
tion  as  it  should  have  happened.  In  this  revision  of  the 
story,  Felix  replied  heartily,  "  Much  too  beautiful !  "  and 
added  — '*  Yet  I  was  considering  going  in  to  a  meeting." — 
"Well,"  said  the  stranger  (for  in  this  imaginary  account  it 
was  made  quite  clear  that  the  man  wanted  to  talk  to  Felix) 
"  You  had  better  reconsider  it  and  take  a  walk  instead." 
And  Felix  had  said  casually,  *'  Are  you  going  up  this  way?  " 
— "  Yes,  through  the  park,"  and  they  had  sauntered  off 
together  —  talking  presently  of  poetry.  .  .  . 

But  nothing  like  that  occured  in  reality.  Felix  stood  si 
lent,  too  starved  for  friendship  to  dare  believe  that  this  man 
was  offering  it  to  him. 

The  stranger,  undeterred  by  Felix's  silence,  added  with 
a  gesture,  "  See  —  the  moon  !  "  And  as  if  that  gesture,  or 
the  words,  or  the  singularly  beautiful  tune  of  the  man's 
voice,  had  called  it  into  being,  Felix  became  aware  of  the 
great  white  moon  over  the  roofs  —  aware  too  of  the  breeze 
with  its  odours  of  cool  dampness  —  aware  of  the  poignant 
wonder  of  night. 

The  man  stood  looking  at  Felix,  and  smiling  faintly  — 
but,  as  it  seemed  to  Felix,  a  little  satirically.  The  thought 
that  he  had  revealed  that  sudden  rush  of  emotion  to  hostile 
eyes,  came  f reezingly  —  and  struck  Felix  wordless. 

Then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  the  stranger  made  a  little 


Rhythms  16 1 

signal  of  farewell  —  an  unmistakably  friendly  signal  —  and 
saying  "  Good  night !  "  started  to  walk  away. 

"  Good  night !  "  said  Felix,  and  wanted  to  rush  after  him. 
But  shame  held  him  fixed  on  the  spot.  And  then  all  the 
beauty  which  this  man  had  seemingly  unloosed,  flooded  in 
upon  him.  He  felt  himself  alone,  defenceless  against  the 
beauty  of  the  moonlit  night.  It  stabbed  him,  tortured  him. 
He  turned  homeward  at  last,  walking  quickly  through  that 
merciless  beauty  in  which  he  was  alone.  .  .  . 

He  stopped  suddenly,  realizing  that  the  figure  which  he 
was  overtaking  was  that  of  the  man  who  had  spoken  to  him. 
He  might,  quite  naturally,  catch  up  with  the  man  and  talk 
with  him  —  find  out  if  he  were  indeed  the  blessed  companion 
which  it  seemed  chance  had  sent  him  out  of  the  night ;  but 
something  kept  him  from  doing  this.  And  as  he  loitered 
along  behind  until  the  man  had  passed  from  sight,  a  phrase 
came  into  his  mind  from  nowhere. 

As  each  one  passed  I  scanned  his  face. 
Felix  walked  on  slowly. 

And  each,  methought,  scanned  mine. 

He  framed  the  words  with  his  lips,  and  whispered  them  to 
the  sky. 

Each  looked  on  each  a  little  space, 
Then  passed  and  made  no  sign. 

Linking  phrase  to  phrase,  he  strode  on  unseeing. 

And  every  cold  glance  answered  Nay! 
Would  no  one  understand? 
None  brush  the  cobweb  bars  away, 
Stand  forth  and  clasp  my  hand? 

But  as  into  each  face  I  peered, 
My  glance  was  cold  as  theirs, — 
That  they  -whose  scornful  look  I  feared 
Might  pass  me  unawares. 


162  Moon-Calf 

He  was  happy  with  a  strange  happiness  that  was  made 
out  of  pain.  Night,  the  moon,  the  shadows  of  the  trees, 
the  wind  with  its  strange  scents,  all  the  beauty  that  had 
tortured  him,  became  his  thoughts,  became  his  emotions, 
became  himself. 


XVII  To  Nowhere  and  Back 


THROUGH  streets  that  were  not  the  streets  he  knew 
by  day,  down  light-and-shadow-enchanted  ways, 
Felix  wandered  by  night,  making  his  songs.     He 
knew  now  that  he  was  a  poet. 

He  wrote  many  poems  that  winter.  They  had  at  first 
strange  titles,  half  reminiscent  of  his  paleontological  re 
searches  — "  Atlantis,"  "  Runes,"  "  Babylon,"  "  The  Dogs  of 
Light,"  "  The  Other  Side  of  the  Moon,"  and  a  whole  series 
called  "  Uxmal  Fragments,"  which  he  pretended  to  himself 
were  translated  from  Mexican  hieroglyphics.  But  they  were 
all  about  himself. 

With  his  bookish  instinct,  he  lettered  them  carefully  in 
little  booklets  made  out  of  drawing-paper  folded  and  sewed 
together  with  cord.  On  the  covers  he  made  fantastic  de 
signs  in  coloured  inks. 

He  had  found  happiness  at  last.  It  seemed  that  he  en 
tered,  at  first  only  for  moments,  and  then  for  long  golden 
hours,  an  enchanted  land  in  which  there  was  neither  desire 
nor  fear  —  only  the  solace  of  magic  words. 

He  grew  indifferent  to  the  outer  world.  It  seemed  less 
real  to  him  than  this  realm  of  dreams  into  which  he  was 
able  to  transport  himself  in  an  instant. 

And  he  was  not  lonely  in  that  realm,  for  he  was  com 
panioned  by  a  shadow,  soft  and  vague  —  a  mere  hint  or 
whisper,  so  unobtrusive  it  was,  of  a  being  almost  without 
sex  as  it  was  almost  without  existence,  yet  faintly  breathing 
the  perfume  of  girlhood  —  a  delicate  and  perfect  comrade 
ship.  She  had  not  been  there,  and  then  one  day  she  was 
there ;  and  the  difference  was  so  slight  as  to  be  almost  im 
perceptible —  yet  there  she  was: 

163 


164  Moon-Calf 

Midway  of  that  enchanted  ground 
There  is  a  lazy  well-sweep  found, 
And  dreamy  waters,  at  whose  brink 
On  summer  noons  we  stop  to  drink. 
Out  underneath  the  listless  boughs, 
Down  in  the  grass,  the  shadows  drowse, 
And  all  the  indolent  slow  hours 
No  breezes  come  to  wake  the  flowers, 
Or  cast  a  ripple  in  the  lake 
To  ivrithe,  a  ghostly  water-snake. 
And  there  for  you  and  me  is  peace, 
Where  passions  fade,  ambitions  cease; 
For  all  the  loves  and  hates  that  toss 
The  helpless  soul,  come  not  across 
The  far-off  purple  hills  that  lie 
A-swoon  beneath  that  sapphire  sky. 


But,  shadowy  and  unreal  as  was  this  faintly  implied  She, 
her  presence  in  this  enchanted  ground,  like  that  of  Eve  in  an 
earlier  Eden,  threatened  its  peace.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
stealthily  brought  with  her  the  fruits  of  reality,  the  bitter 
sweet  apples  of  the  tree  of  life. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  his  poems  became  so  antique 
in  their  pretences.  As  if  he  realized  that  in  permitting  to 
Her  a  suggestion  of  contemporaneous  reality  he  had  spoiled 
his  paradise,  he  took  her  hand  and  fled  with  her  to  ancient 
Greece,  where  she  became  Helen  —  and  he  the  unknown 
captain  of  the  bark  in  which  she  sailed  away  from  Sparta 
with  her  Trojan  Prince.  In  this  disguise  he  could  admit 
that  he  loved  her.  Indeed,  as  her  victim,  he  could  take  some 
pride  in  the  inevitable  disaster  which  the  love  of  woman 
brought.  Why  do  the  ruin-hurling  Gods  not  smite?  For 
I  too  have  loved  Helen! 

Then,  lest  she  turn  and  smile  upon  him,  he  fled  to  Babylon  : 
but  not  alone  —  she  was  there  as  Semiramis.  He  was  her 
greybeard  magician,  keeper  of  the  knowledge  of  the  most 
ancient  tablets,  yet  tricked  by  her  into  drinking  a  love-philter 
which  made  him  her  slave.  Again  he  fled,  this  time  to  At 
lantis.  She  was  its  Virgin  Queen  and  he  her  Harper.  He 
sang  to  her  the  ancient  warning  prophecies  which  foretold 


To  Nowhere  and  Back  165 

the  doom  of  Atlantis  whenever  its  Queen  should  touch  her 
lips  to  the  lips  of  another.  And  she  had  leaned  forward 
smiling,  and  said,  "  Kiss  me !  " 

Backward  and  backward  he  had  retreated,  into  the  inner 
most  caves  of  fantasy,  taking  with  him  this  fearful  and 
beautiful  antagonist.  He  had  escaped  from  Greece,  from 
Babylon,  but  now,  in  the  last  reaches  of  the  world  of  dreams, 
amid  its  uttermost  shadows,  they  stood  face  to  face  in  final 
contest.  She  was  all  that  he  hated  and  feared  and  could 
not  give  up ;  she  was  reality,  and  pain,  and  heart-break,  she 
was  the  world  of  difficulty  and  danger,  of  hope  that  turns  to 
despair,  of  ambition  that  ends  in  failure.  She  was  Life, 
mocking,  malign,  and  alluring.  "  Kiss  me ! "  she  said. 

3 

With  that  dream-kiss  burning  on  his  lips,  he  groped  his 
way  out  of  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  his  dream-world  into  the 
light  of  common  day.  He  knew  two  things  in  that  moment. 
He  knew  that  he  feared  girls  because  they  would  demand 
of  him  something  other  than  dreams.  And  he  knew  that  he 
would  surrender  to  that  demand. 

What!  would  you  go  with  empty  hands, 
Unlaureled  head,  to  where  she  stands, 
And  mark  the  look  of  sheer  surprise 
And  easy  scorn  in  her  young  eyes? 
"  Do  you  think  that  I  will  give,"  she'll  ask, 
"My  love  to  one  who  leaves  his  task, 
Who  shuns  the  field  of  combat,  quits 
The  battle  ere  'tis  well  begun, 
And  all  the  drowsy  summer  sits 
Blowing  his  bubbles  in  the  sun!" 

He  must  live  in  the  world  of  reality.  And  that  meant 
that  he  must  go  to  work.  At  what?  But  here  realism 
failed  him. 

He  could  not  choose  between  different  kinds  of  work, 
because  he  hated  them  all.  He  would  work  at  anything. 
And  that  meant  going  to  work  in  some  factory. 


166  Moon-Calf 

He  envisaged  himself  as  a  factory-hand.  He  had  no 
illusions  about  being  able  to  rise  from  the  ranks.  He  would 
remain  a  factory-hand,  and  an  ill-paid  one.  .  .  .  He  saw  him 
self  falling  in  love  with  some  girl  at  a  factory ;  marrying 
her,  having  children,  and  living  in  a  little  house  like  his 
brother's,  just  like  all  the  others  on  both  sides  of  the  street 
up  and  down  the  block.  His  backyard  could  be  different,  if 
he  wanted  to  plant  a  garden  there,  like  his  brother's.  His 
brother's  garden  was  better  than  any  of  his  neighbour's. 
Felix  realized  that  his  garden  would  be  different,  too  —  it 
would  be  the  worst  garden  on  the  block  in  which  he  lived. 
It  would  be  worse  because  he  would  be  thinking  of  poetry 
instead  of  potatoes.  And  if  he  thought  of  poetry  his  pay- 
envelope  would  be  too  small  for  his  wife  to  get  along  on, 
and  she  would  nag  him.  By  that  time  she  would  have 
ceased  to  be  pretty.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  a  cheerful  prospect.  But  life  was  like  that  — 
real  life.  And  there  were  consolations,  else  why  did  peo 
ple  keep  on  living? 

He  was  walking  through  the  streets  as  he  thought  these 
things,  and  he  stopped  in  front  of  a  window  to  look  at  the 
crimson  and  gold  wings  of  a  dead  butterfly  pinned  to  a 
card,  with  the  legend,  "  We  can't  all  be  butterflies."  No, 
Felix  reflected,  we  can't.  Not  even  butterflies  can.  For 
those  wings,  which  that  shopkeeper  foolishly  thinks  are 
mere  ornaments,  are  part  of  the  serious  business  of  life  to 
that  butterfly.  He  must  wing  his  way  to  the  nectar  cup  for 
his  dinner,  and  attract  his  mate  and  follow  her;  and  when 
that  is  finished,  his  destiny  is  accomplished.  He  cannot 
drink  any  more  nectar,  for  his  thorax  contracts ;  Life  is 
through  with  him,  and  he  dies.  .  .  . 

They  know  thee  not,  who  deem  thy  hues 

The  splendid  appanage  of  pride, 

As  on  some  idle  pleasure-cruise 

Thou  seemest  royally  to  glide 

With  summer's  soft  and  languorous  tide 

Down  crimson-bannered  avenues.  .  .  . 


To  Nowhere  and  Back  167 

He  walked  away,  framing  the  words  into  rhythmic  se 
quence. 

Yet  is  that  fancy  dear  to  me! 

It  is  not  good^  to  look  around 

And  see  no  single  creature  free 

From  these  chains  wherewith  I  am  bound. 

I  still  believe  that  thou  hast  found 

Release  from  laws  men  think  to  be 

Relentless,  from  the  dreary  round 

Of  ... 

Of  what?  The  phrase  eluded  him.  ...  He  had  reached 
home.  He  stood  in  front  of  his  brother's  house,  seeing  in 
it  and  in  the  life  lived  within,  a  picture  of  his  life  to  be. 
That  was  his  brother's  fate,  why  not  his?  Why  should  he 
ask  something  better  —  something  like  the  fancied  life  of 
the  butterfly  ?  Yet  he  did.  .  .  . 

And  if  in  bitterness  and  scorn 

I  walk  the  ways  my  fathers  trod, 

Thou,  Hashing  through  the  perfumed  morn, 

Shalt  be  my  plea  to  God! 


His  proposal  to  quit  school  and  go  to  work  was  met  with 
indignation  by  Ed  and  Alice.  And  when  he  insisted  that 
it  must  happen  sometime,  Alice  offered  a  realistic  counter 
proposal.  It  contained  her  secret  dream  as  to  his  future. 

It  would  be  wrong,  she  said,  for  him  to  go  to  work  in  a 
factory.  She  had  often  wished  that  Ed  had  learned  to  do 
some  kind  of  office-work.  By  all  means  Felix  should  go 
into  an  office.  It  would  be  better  for  him  to  finish  his 
schooling,  of  course.  But  if  he  wouldn't  do  that,  the  thing 
to  do  was  to  go  to  a  business  college  next  summer.  .  .  . 
She  foresaw  a  brilliant  future  for  Felix  in  business.  It 
was  only  necessary  to  get  a  start.  He  had  ideas.  He  would 
be  appreciated.  But  he  must  first  learn  something  about 
accounts,  and  business  correspondence.  .  .  . 

Felix  said  coldly  that  he  would  not  go  to  a  business  col 
lege,  and  went  out  to  look  for  work.  He  knew  that  what 


168  Moon-Calf 

she  said  was  true.  Why,  then,  did  he  not  follow  her  ad 
vice?  Was  it  because  he  felt  that  as  a  factory-hand  he 
could  still  cherish  his  dreams  in  secret,  while  in  business  he 
must  utterly  give  them  up?  ...  He  went  to  a  candy-factory 
near  his  brother's  home,  because  he  had  worked  in  such  a 
place  and  felt  more  at  ease  in  asking  for  a  job  there.  The 
man  in  the  office  seemed  to  look  at  him  with  a  favourable 
eye,  but  pointed  out  that  this  was  a  bad  time  to  look  for 
work.  Many  of  the  force  had  been  laid  off  at  Christmas, 
and  work  would  be  slack  until  next  summer.  If  he  would 
come  around  in  June  they  would  try  to  find  a  place  for 
him. 

When  Felix  returned  home,  Ed  renewed  the  discussion, 
urging  him  to  continue  going  to  school  this  year  at  least. 
His  own  prospects  would  soon  improve,  and  Felix  need  not 
think  they  could  not  afford  to  have  him  there  without  work 
ing.  As  a  last  argument,  he  added :  "  Your  mother  would 
not  want  you  to  leave  school,  Felix." 

Felix,  baffled  and  impatient  of  the  difficulty  of  doing 
something  that  he  did  not  want  to  do,  shrugged  his  shoul 
ders,  and  said,  "  Well  —  all  right !  " 


He  returned  to  his  booklets.  He  found  it  possible  to  put 
in  endless  hours  with  the  lettering  and  the  designs  on  the 
covers.  One  evening,  when  he  was  drawing  a  gaudy  but 
terfly  on  the  cover  of  one  of  his  booklets,  Ed  stopped  beside 
him,  looked  at  the  drawing,  and  praised  it.  Then  he  took 
up  the  booklet  and  glanced  idly  inside. 

Felix  held  his  breath.  To  him  this  poem  spoke  so  clearly 
of  his  feelings  about  such  an  existence  as  Ed's  own,  that 
he  felt  detected  in  disloyalty.  He  watched  his  brother's 
face  anxiously  for  any  sign  of  reproach.  The  benevolent 
placidity  he  saw  there  encouraged  him. 

Ed  handed  the  poem  back.  "  Did  you  write  that  ?  "  he 
asked. 


To  Nowhere  and  Back  169 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix,  half  apologetically. 

"  It's  very  pretty,"  said  Ed.  "  But  if  I  were  you  I 
wouldn't  use  that  heavy  stub  pen  to  ink  in  that  drawing. 
You'd  better  get  a  croquill." 

Felix  was  relieved.  It  appeared,  then,  that  if  one  wrote 
in  rhyme,  it  was  as  if  one  wrote  in  a  foreign  language ;  no 
one  else  understood  it.  To  others  this  was  not  an  intimate 
confession ;  it  was  simply  —  a  poem. 

Emboldened  by  this  experience,  and  no  longer  afraid  that 
some  one  would  look  over  his  shoulder  and  discover  all  his 
heart,  Felix  ventured  to  use  his  spare  time  in  school  for  the 
purpose  of  revising  and  finishing  his  poems. 

He  had  time  to  spare.  Quite  unwittingly  and  almost 
wholly  undeservedly,  Felix  had  gained  at  school  the  reputa 
tion  of  being  "  a  shark  "  at  most  of  his  studies.  A  series  of 
accidents  had  given  that  impression  to  teachers  and  pupils 
alike.  He  was  clumsy  at  algebra ;  but  on  one  occasion,  when 
his  teacher  had  been  playing  bridge  very  late  the  night  be 
fore,  she  made  a  mistake  in  demonstrating  the  problem ;  and 
Felix,  in  his  eagerness  to  set  her  right,  took  the  chalk  from 
her  fingers  and  worked  it  out  on  the  blackboard  swiftly  and 
correctly.  His  "  nerve "  served  to  dramatize  a  gift  for 
mathematics  which  he  did  not  in  fact  possess.  His  history 
teacher  had  been  equally  impressed.  Felix's  mind  did  not 
easily  retain  dates  and  names,  nor  the  events  of  history  in 
the  precise  sequences  in  which  they  were  recorded  in  the 
text-book;  but  he  found  that  when  he  had  forgotten  to 
study  his  lesson  he  was  able  to  acquit  himself  with  credit  by 
discussing  the  events  they  were  dealing  with,  in  the  light 
of  other  historical  works  which  he  had  been  reading  out  of 
school  hours.  Similarly,  in  other  classes,  he  had  gained  a 
reputation  for  cleverness,  of  which  he  was  quite  unaware. 
.  .  .  Still  less  was  he  aware  that  presently  everybody  in 
school  knew  that  he  was  writing  poetry. 

But  one  day  the  next  spring,  when  Felix  had  spent  the 
study  hour  revising  a  poem,  the  teacher  in  charge  caught  his 
eye,  and  beckoned  him  to  his  desk.  At  the  same  time  he 


170  Moon-Calf 

made  a  gesture  which  indicated  that  Felix  was  to  bring  him 
what  he  had  been  writing. 

A  long- forgotten  memory  of  the  principal  at  Maple  flashed 
into  Felix's  mind,  and  for  a  moment  he  was  overcome  with 
sick,  childish  apprehension.  But  this  man  was  his  history 
teacher,  a  genial  and  friendly  soul.  Felix  was  not  afraid 
of  him.  .  .  .  He  picked  up  his  paper  and  went  to  the  desk. 

"  I  suspect,"  said  the  teacher,  "  that  this  is  a  poem  you  have 
been  writing?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Felix. 

"May  I  see  it?" 

Felix  handed  it  over.  He  did  not  believe  the  teacher 
would  understand  its  real  meaning ;  he  hoped  not  —  and  yet 
there  was  a  faint  awkward  hope  that  he  would.  He  could 
not  help  saying  the  lines  over  to  himself  as  the  teacher  read 
them,  and  it  was  with  a  sense  of  almost  indecent  exposure 
that  he  stood  and  waited. 

The  teacher  looked  up.     "  Very  good,  I  should  say,  Felix." 

Felix  sighed  with  relief.  The  teacher  had  taken  it  simply 
as  a  poem.  Felix  felt  clothed  again. 

The  teacher  wras  speaking.  **  Would  you  mind  if  I  kept 
this  until  tomorrow?  I  want  to  show  it  to  Mr.  Hibben." 
Mr.  Hibben  was  the  teacher  of  '*  English,"  a  study  which 
Felix  had  in  some  way  escaped  being  required  to  take. 
Felix  assented,  and  went  back  to  his  seat  wondering. 


The  next  day  he  found  out.  The  history  teacher  asked 
him  to  stay  a  moment  after  the  class  period,  and  then  ex 
plained  to  him  that  the  school  was  sending  a  volume,  repre 
sentative  of  the  school  work,  to  the  World's  Fair  at  St. 
Louis.  He  had  heard  that  Felix  wrote  poetry.  He  had 
shown  Felix's  poem  to  Mr.  Hibben,  who  was  his  room 
mate,  and  they  had  both  thought  it  would  be  an  excellent 
idea  if  Felix  would  write  a  poem  for  the  volume.  ...  Of 
course,  it  ought  if  possible  to  have  some  relation  to  the  work 


To  Nowhere  and  Back  171 

of  the  school;  and  he  himself  thought  it  would  be  fine  if 
Felix  would  write  a  historical  poem. 

Felix  went  away  from  that  interview  in  a  most  agreeably 
fluttered  state.  He  had  never  dreamed  of  his  poems  being 
important  to  any  one  besides  himself ;  not  important,  exactly, 
but  useful  —  think  of  that !  —  and  a  credit  to  the  school. 

As  for  a  historical  poem,  he  had  never  thought  of  writing 
such  a  thing;  but  if  his  history  teacher  thought  he  could, 
why,  he  must  not  be  disappointed. 

Felix  would  write  a  poem  for  the  World's  Fair  Book. 


XVIII  Helen  Raymond 


THAT  afternoon  he  hurried  to  the  library  and  read 
hastily  and  excitedly  a  volume  on  the  Moors  in 
Spain.     He  had  decided  upon  a  subject  for  his 
historical  poem. 

Then,  with  his  head  full  of  pictures  of  the  marble  courts 
that  were  to  be  splashed  with  blood,  the  flower-beds  that 
were  to  be  trampled  in  massacre,  the  busy  looms  that  were 
to  be  smashed  to  bits  by  savage  Christian  hatred,  the  scrolls 
that  were  to  be  flung  into  bonfires,  all  the  pagan  beauty  and 
joy  and  wisdom  that  were  to  be  destroyed,  he  composed  as 
he  walked  the  streets  a  bitterly  ironical  "  Ballad  of  the 
Moors'  Expulsion."  ...  It  was,  indeed,  beneath  its  histori 
cal  guise,  a  poem  about  himself  —  though  he  was  unaware 
of  it:  a  poem  about  going  to  work  —  the  triumph  of  reality 
over  the  dream.  The  paradise  destroyed  by  Christian  hate 
was  his  own  paradise. 

Where  fountains  toss  their  Hashing  spray, 

And  roses  glow  serene, 

Where  lute  and  viol  charm  the  day, 

And  minstrels  chant  unseen, 

Vultures  shall  quarrel  o'er  their  prey  — 

Ravens,  and  beasts  unclean. 

In  spite  of  a  note  of  atheistic  mockery  at  the  end,  which 
Felix  feared  the  authorities  might  not  like,  the  poem  was 
accepted  for  the  World's  Fair  Book.  Felix  enjoyed  the 
appreciation  of  his  history  teacher,  and  of  Mr.  Hibben,  who 
stopped  him  in  the  hall  to  praise  the  poem.  He  had  showed 
it,  he  said,  to  a  little  club  of  literary  people  to  which  he 
belonged,  and  they  had  thought  it  a  remarkable  piece  of 

172 


Helen  Raymond  173 

work.  Felix  reported  these  things  at  home,  and  read  the 
ballad  to  Ed  and  Alice. 

The  auspiciousness  of  this  occasion  was  somewhat  marred 
by  the  discussion  that  followed.  With  the  best  of  intentions, 
Alice  brought  up  the  question  of  business  college  again,  and 
gently  urged  it  upon  him.  He  had  a  great  future  ahead  of 
him,  she  said  —  if  only  he  would  be  sensible.  Felix  began 
inventing  arguments  against  business  college,  and  when  he 
could  think  of  no  more  he  rushed  petulantly  out  of  the 
house. 

He  declared  passionately  to  himself  that  he  was  sorry  he 
had  written  that  poem.  It  was  as  if  the  blossoming 
branch  that  he  had  plucked  in  paradise  and  brought  into  the 
land  of  reality  had  been  grossly  handled  by  alien  hands.  .  .  . 
Yet  he  could  not  help  being  glad  that  he  had  made  Ed  and 
Alice  proud  of  him! 


Felix  had  a  private  view  of  the  World's  Fair  Book,  a 
magnificent  volume  in  green  tooled  leather,  containing  an 
array  of  maps,  drawings  of  flowers  and  birds,  and  pages  of 
neatly  written  Greek,  among  all  of  which  his  own  neatly 
lettered  poem  still  seemed  to  maintain  an  air  of  distinction. 
He  took  one  last  look  at  it,  handed  back  the  volume  to  the 
history  teacher,  and  the  incident  seemed  closed. 

But  among  the  members  of  the  little  literary  club  to  whom 
Mr.  Hibben  had  shown  the  poem,  was  Miss  Raymond.  Miss 
Raymond  held  the  position  of  chief  librarian  in  the  Port 
Royal  Public  Library.  Felix  did  not  know  her.  But  he 
would  have  been  thrilled  to  learn  that  her  eyes  had  looked 
upon  his  poem.  He  had  seen  her  afar  —  that  is  to  say,  as 
she  came  and  went  about  the  library  with  a  light  step,  disap 
pearing  all  too  quickly  into  that  secluded  and  sacred  region, 
her  private  office.  He  knew  her  name,  and  her  official  posi 
tion.  But  to  him  she  was  not  so  much  the  librarian  as  the 
spirit,  half  familiar  and  half  divine,  which  haunted  this 
place  of  books.  She  might  have  been  evoked  by  his  imagina- 


174  Moon-Calf 

tion,  even  as  were  the  shining  spirits  of  wood  and  stream  in 
an  earlier  day.  She  had,  like  these  books,  a  spirit  above 
the  rush  and  stress  of  common  life.  Something  in  her  light 
step,  her  serene  glance,  personified  for  him  the  spirit  of 
literature;  she  was  its  spirit,  made  visible  in  radiant  cool 
flesh. 

More  lately  he  had  noted  her  quick,  whimsical  smile,  and 
heard  her  soft,  impetuous  speech.  But  he  had  never  thought 
of  her  as  quite  belonging  to  the  world  of  reality.  He  knew 
librarianesses,  and  they  had  been  kind  to  him.  But  of  her 
as  having  any  relation  to  himself  he  had  never  dreamed. 

And  now  suddenly,  breaking  through  the  invisible  veil  be 
hind  which  she  had  moved,  she  appeared  to  him  as  a  person, 
a  woman,  tall,  slender,  beautiful,  smiling,  holding  out  her 
hand. 

"  You  are  Felix  Fay,  aren't  you  ?  "  she  said.  "  I  am  Helen 
Raymond." 


For  months  Helen  Raymond  had  had  glimpses  of  the  slim 
brown-haired  boy  who  prowled  constantly  among  the  book- 
stacks.  It  was  part  of  her  duty,  as  she  conceived  it,  to  en 
courage  people  who  showed  any  enthusiasm  for  books  — 
not  merely  by  official  helpfulness,  but  by  revealing  herself 
to  them  as  a  fellow-enthusiast.  But  in  this  boy  there  was 
something  which  had  made  her  hold  back  from  a  too-casual 
friendliness.  She  had  taken  pains  to  learn  his  name.  She 
would  have  spoken  to  him  —  but  she  felt  his  shyness,  and 
respected  it.  She  said  to  herself  laughingly  that  she  wanted 
a  "  human  "  excuse  for  speaking  to  him. 

And  now  the  occasion  had  quite  magnificently  arrived. 
Mr.  Hibben  had  shown  her  his  verses.  He  was,  then,  a 
poet!  She  might,  she  reflected,  have  guessed  it.  She 
awaited  his  next  appearance  at  the  library,  and  came  straight 
down  to  him.  .  .  . 

Felix  was  dazzled. 

They  talked,  standing  there  between  the  tall  bookstacks. 


Helen  Raymond  175 

Or  rather,  if  Felix  talked  he  was  not  aware  of  it.  He  was 
listening,  bemused.  She  had  read  his  poem.  It  was  beau 
tiful,  and  she  wanted  to  see  more  of  his  work.  Would  he 
bring  his  poems  to  her?  They  must  have  a  long  talk  soon 
—  very  soon.  She  wanted  to  be  his  friend.  .  .  . 

He  went  away  intoxicated,  and  was  hardly  conscious  of 
the  outer  world  during  the  period  that  intervened  before 
their  promised  talk. 

He  delayed  his  coming  till  the  second  evening,  lest  he 
seem  precipitate.  He  sent  in  his  message  to  her,  half  hoping 
and  half  fearing  that  she  would  not  be  there,  or  that  she 
would  be  too  busy.  Yes,  she  was  there ;  he  was  to  go  right 
in. 

He  entered  her  office,  and  sat  down  in  the  chair  beside 
her  desk ;  but  of  the  room  itself  he  was  scarcely  aware.  Her 
smile  and  her  eyes  had  swept  a  magic  circle  about  them.  He 
was  in  a  dream. 

He  was  so  much  in  a  dream  that  her  first  words,  after 
their  greeting,  seemed  strange. 

"  Tell  me  about  yourself,"  she  said. 

There  seemed  to  be  nothing  to  tell.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
known  about  him  always,  as  though  they  had  always  known 
each  other ;  and  why  was  she  pretending  that  they  were 
strangers?  He  roused  himself  and  tried  to  reply.  But  he 
knew  that  what  he  was  saying  did  not  matter  to  either  of 
them.  He  felt  held  aloof  by  her  attitude  of  complete  smil 
ing  attention.  Her  words,  for  all  their  friendliness,  had  the 
accent  of  that  formal  courtesy  with  which  one  treats  a  new 
acquaintance.  Yes,  she  was  being  polite  to  him !  He  was 
annoyed. 

She  felt  this.  She  knew  exactly  what  was  going  on  in 
his  mind;  she  knew,  because  she,  too,  had  felt  that  way. 
But,  she  said  smilingly  to  herself,  some  formality  is  not 
unnatural  in  a  young  woman  upon  the  occasion  of  her  second 
meeting  with  a  young  man ! 

She  smiled,  but  she  maintained  the  barrier. 

But  it  was  not  as  man  to  woman  that  Felix  had  come  to 


176  Moon-Calf 

her.  It  was  as  worshipper  and  child  to  some  lovely  and 
infinitely  maternal  Goddess. 

She  could  not  but  recognize  that  this  was  so ;  he  had  be 
trayed  it  instantly  in  his  attitude,  in  his  devoted  and  helpless 
gaze  of  utter  confidence  and  trust  and  dependence.  It  had 
given  her,  indeed,  a  moment  of  panic,  and  this  was  her 
instinctive  response.  She  was  not  going  to  mother  him! 

And  then,  as  suddenly  as  it  came,  his  swift  unintelligible 
anger  against  her  vanished,  leaving  him  ashamed  of  himself 
and  of  his  tongue-tied  silence. 

She  asked  more  questions,  prompting  him.  She  learned, 
what  she  already  knew  from  Mr.  Hibben,  his  age.  She 
learned  how  long  he  had  been  in  Port  Royal ;  from  whence 
he  came ;  and  that  his  father  was  a  butcher  — "  by  trade," 
Felix  said,  using  the  phrase  which  served  in  such  catechisms 
to  veil  decently  the  family  ill-fortune. 

Had  he  been  writing  poetry  long  ?  Why  had  he  begun  to 
write  poetry  ? 

He  —  didn't  know  why,  exactly. 

Impasse.  .  .  . 

It  was  only  when  she  began  to  talk  of  books  that  his 
tongue  untied  itself.  He  discoursed  eloquently  of  his  en 
thusiasms.  In  poetry  —  when  she  had  succeeded  in  draw 
ing  him  away  from  biology  and  ethnology  —  he  showed 
singular  gaps  in  his  reading.  He  had  read  all  of  Southey  — 
and  nothing  of  Keats !  Of  Shelley,  he  liked  best  the  Masque 
of  Anarchy ;  the  Sensitive  Plant  had  bored  him,  and  he  had 
never  finished  it.  He  disliked  Shakespeare.  He  had  a 
curious  admiration  for  Byron's  English  Bards  and  Scotch 
Reviewers.  He  had  never  heard  of  W.  B.  Yeats;  yes,  he 
had,  too  —  only  he  had  supposed  the  name  was  pronounced 
"  Yeets." 

He  spoke  with  calm  assurance  of  a  book  of  poems  of 
which  she  had  never  heard  "  The  Shropshire  Lad,"  as  the 
best  poetry  in  the  English  language. 

He  admired  Heine  tremendously.  (Yet  he  said  he  could 
not  read  German!) 


Helen  Raymond  177 

He  declared  that  Rossetti  could  not  write  sonnets;  and 
named  a  certain  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt  as  one  who  could! 
He  esteemed  Herrick  a  better  poet  than  Milton. 
He  quoted  Verlaine  —  almost  recognizably : 

"//  pleur  dans  mon  coeur 
Comme  il  pleur  sur  la  ville  " — 

but  insisted  that  he  did  not  read  French ! 

It  seemed  at  least  a  partial  explanation  of  this  chaos  of 
enthusiasms  when  she  learned  that  he  had  never  read  poetry 
until  the  last  year,  and  had  been  reading  it  all  since  then  — 
at  the  rate  of  several  poets  a  week! 

Her  little  desk-clock  struck  a  silvery  chime  in  an  opportune 
silence,  and  he  stood  up,  suddenly  realizing  that  he  had 
stayed  a  long  time. 

She  took  up  the  bundle  of  poems  he  had  brought  with  him. 
"  I  shall  read  these  tonight,"  she  said.  "  Will  you  come  and 
see  me  again  —  very  soon  ?  " 

He  went  away  with  a  strange  sense  of  bafflement  and  hurt. 
He  explained  it  to  himself  as  he  went  home  by  saying  that 
he  had  stayed  too  long  and  talked  too  much. 


XIX  Initiation 


HELEN  told  herself  that  she  liked  him.  He  was  an 
odd  child,  she  mused,  on  her  way  home  with  his 
poems  under  her  arm.  She  remembered  the  way 
he  looked  when  he  went  out.  .  .  .  His  talk,  with  its  curious 
mingling  of  erudition  and  ignorance,  so  infantile  in  some  of 
its  cocksure  judgments  and  so  uncannily  mature  in  others, 
had  obscured  his  essential  character  for  a  while;  but  the 
look  of  him  as  he  left  her  had  revealed  him  again  as  she  had 
known  him  first.  .  .  . 

She  had  in  that  instant  made  up  two  phrases,  which  with 
their  humour  half  concealed  and  half  expressed  her  sense  of 
him.  "The  Compleat  Idealist "—  and :  "There,  but  for 
the  grace  of  Miss  Atkinson,  go  I ! " 

Miss  Atkinson  had  been  one  of  her  teachers  at  college  — 
a  crabbed  old  woman  who  had  flung  dart  after  dart  of  steely 
irony  at  Helen's  "  dreamishness  "  until  she  had  learned  to 
hide  it.  ... 

And  again  that  night,  when  she  read  his  poems,  there  was 
a  fluttering  of  poignant  sympathy  in  her.  She  saw  in  these 
poems  for  a  moment  the  shy,  groping  child.  .  .  . 

She  read  on,  listening  to  these  pitiful  and  obscure  cries 
of  longing,  until  suddenly  she  recovered  herself.  "  This 
won't  do,"  she  said.  "  I  want  to  help  him." 

So  she  read  them  all  over  again  —  critically.  There  were 
beautiful  things  in  them ;  and  many  serious  defects.  .  .  . 
She  thought  out  what  she  would  say  to  him. 


At  their  next  meeting  she  said  the  things  which  she  had 
thought  out.     They  were  not  exactly  what  she  wanted  to 

178 


Initiation  179 

say,  it  seemed,  when  the  time  came ;  but  she  said  them. 

Felix  had  no  clear  idea  of  what  happened  on  this  occasion. 
But  he  had  gone  there  as  a  child  to  his  mother  —  and  he 
came  away  painfully  grown  up. 

She  had  praised  his  work.  And  it  was  precisely  her  praise 
that  hurt.  .  .  . 

He  did  not  understand,  and  he  called  himself  a  fool;  but 
he  said  he  would  not  go  to  see  her  again. 

Yet  he  did  go  to  see  her  again.  He  went  as  often  as 
possible,  though  always  in  a  sense  unwillingly.  And  each 
time  he  went,  he  took  to  her  a  new  poem. 

Through  the  beautiful  months  of  spring  he  wrote  many 
poems,  each  as  an  excuse  which  would  permit  him  to  see 
Helen  Raymond.  Without  such  an  excuse  he  never  came. 

It  was  as  if  she  had  forbidden  him  to  come,  save  as  a 
poet.  .  .  . 

Once  he  stayed  away,  wilfully,  a  long  time,  weeks,  and 
then,  when  perforce  he  returned  —  it  was  on  his  seventeenth 
birthday  —  it  was  with  a  new  poem  called  "  The  Gift."  He 
explained  to  her  —  and  half  believed  the  explanation  him 
self  —  that  it  had  been  suggested  by  a  passage  in  a  novel  of 
Merejkowski's. 

A  perfect  little  ship  I  made 
With  patient  hands  and  eager  heart  — 
From  silken  sail  to  caruen  keel 
The  flower  of  boyish  art. 

I  did  not  launch  it  on  the  bay 
Thai  stretches  calm  and  blue  so  far 
You  wonder  if  it  is  a  dream 
That  any  tempests  are. 

I  came  and  bore  it  in  my  hands, 
And  kneeling  laid  it  at  your  feet  — 
Then  rose  to  meet  your  glad  caress, 
Than  any  thanks  more  sweet. 

But  now  instead  you  strangely  spoke 
Anent  the  little  gift  I  brought, — 
Saying  it  showed  an  artist's  skill, 
So  craftily  'twas  wrought! 


i8o  Moon-Calf 

The  thirst  I  had  not  known  was  there 
Such  rvords  as  these  would  never  slake  > 
And  it  was  worthless  now,  the  gift 
You  praised,  but  would  not  take. 

If  you  had  never  looked  on  it, 
But  only  kissed  me  on  the  lips, 
That  rudely-whittled  block  had  been 
A  marvel  among  ships! 

But  now,  when  you  had  turned  away 
Praising  the  product  of  my  hands, 
In  bitterness  I  flung  it  down 
Upon  the  ruined  sands. 

I  tore  the  purple  sail  across, 

I  snapped  the  polished  mast  in  twain. 

For  if  it  merited  but  praise, 

My  labour  was  in  vain! 


Helen  read  this  new  poem  of  Felix's  with  a  distrait  mind, 
her  thoughts  returning  to  certain  plans  she  had  been  making 
for  his  benefit. 

She  had  by  now  forgotten,  except  as  an  impression  of 
quaint  awkwardness,  how, Felix  had  seemed  to  her  at  first. 
He  had  indeed  grown  up  amazingly  in  these  few  months. 
He  had  lost  a  great  deal  of  his  shyness,  he  could  talk  more 
easily,  his  eyes  no  longer  had  that  lost-doggie  look  of  painful 
and  obscure  pleading  —  in  a  word,  he  was  more  mature. 
But  he  needed  further  readjustments  with  the  world  in  which 
he  lived.  He  needed  other  friends,  besides  herself.  He 
needed  her  friends.  .  .  .  When  she  had  duly  praised  his 
poem,  she  spoke  to  him  of  them. 

She  had  told  them  about  Felix,  and  they  wanted  to  know 
him.  They  were,  she  said,  the  kind  of  people  he  ought  to 
know.  One  was  a  young  novelist.  Tom  Alden.  His  first 
novel  —  had  Felix  seen  it  ?  —  was  a  most  unusual  book. 
She  would  look  up  a  copy  for  him.  The  other  man  was  a 
poet.  Doyle  Clavering  was  his  name.  His  poems  were 
here  in  the  library,  too.  He  had  shown  great  interest  in 
Felix's  work.  .  .  .  She  went  on  to  speak  of  "  a  little  din- 


Initiation  181 

ner."  Tom  Alden's  wife  ("a  beautiful  and  charming 
woman")  had  suggested  it.  He  must  come  over  to  the 
Aldens'  some  evening,  very  soon,  and  meet  these  people ;  or, 
as  she  put  it,  they  would  meet  him.  .  .  . 

Casually  as  it  was  put,  it  was  nevertheless  an  obviously 
flattering  scheme.  These  people,  charming  and  intellectual, 
wanted  to  meet  him!  He  was  to  set  the  date,  and  invite 
any  one  else  he  wished ! 

That  they  would  all  like  him,  that  they  liked  him  already, 
Helen  tried  to  leave  no  doubt.  And  for  a  moment  he  be 
lieved  it.  He  had  simply  to  walk  into  and  take  possession 
of  this  new  world,  the  world  in  which  he  belonged. 

His  poems  were  the  open  sesame  to  a  wonderful  world  of 
friendship  with  poets  and  novelists  and  beautiful  women. 
...  A  new  life  had  begun  for  him. 


Nevertheless,  it  was  only  superficially  that  Felix  was  flat 
tered  and  delighted.  Secretly,  and  almost  unknown  to  him 
self,  he  was  angry  and  hurt.  It  was  as  if  he  did  not  want 
any  other  friends  —  as  if  Helen  Raymond's  offer  to  share 
him  with  them  were  a  kind  of  disloyalty.  9 

It  was  in  an  obscurely  hostile  mood  that  he  read  Tom 
Alden's  novel  and  Doyle  Clavering's  poems. 

The  novel  failed  to  reveal  to  him  the  impatient  and  fiery 
soul  which  Helen  knew  in  its  author.     And  Doyle  Claver-  -, 
ing's  poems,  Felix  said  in  a  very  small  whisper  to  himself, 
were  not  as  good  as  his  own.  ...  ) 

And  yet  he  was  pleased,  and  a  little  incredulous,  that  these 
distinguished  people  should  want  to  know  him. 

Not  less  pleased  and  proud,  Ed  and  Alice  looked  at  his 
clothes  anxiously,  and  held  a  secret  conference  as  to  the 
possibility  of  getting  him  a  new  suit.  But  it  could  not, 
apparently,  be  done,  and  as  the  next  best  thing  Felix  was 
persuaded  to  wear  Ed's  best  coat  for  the  occasion.  It  was 
of  blue  serge,  like  Felix's  own ;  and  if  the  sleeves  were  a 
trifle  too  long,  that  was  better  than  having  them  away  too 


182  Moon-Calf 

short.  Excited  and  inwardly  reluctant,  Felix  was  started 
off  to  the  Alden  house  on  the  appointed  evening. 

He  rang  the  bell  at  exactly  seven  o'clock,  having  walked 
around  the  block  twice  and  consulted  his  Ingersoll  watch  at 
every  moment  to  make  sure.  He  was  warmly  greeted  by 
Mrs.  Alden,  and  inducted  into  the  drawing-room,  where  he 
slipped  on  the  smooth  floor  and  had  to  walk  carefully.  In 
confusion  he  shook  hands  with  what  seemed  a  vast  roomful 
of  people.  All  his  faculties  were  in  eclipse ;  he  did  not  hear 
the  names  of  the  people  he  was  meeting,  and  had  no  idea 
which  was  which.  .  .  .  Helen  hurried  in  just  then,  and  he 
fixed  his  eyes  on  her  in  a  sort  of  baffled  and  hopeless  trust. 

He  would  have  been  astonished  to  learn  that  he  gave  the 
impression  of  being  a  very  self-possessed  young  man.  He 
thought  he  was  behaving  like  an  idiot. 

Presently  they  were  all  seated  at  the  dinner-table.  The 
service  was  simple,  but  Felix* was  embarrassed  by  unfamiliar 
articles  of  cutlery,  and  it  was  not  for  some  time  that  he 
discovered  his  napkin  hidden  beneath  his  plate.  There  was 
a  salad  —  the  first  salad  that  Felix  had  ever  seen.  He 
rashly  refused  the  mayonnaise,  not  knowing  what  it  was  for. 
Mrs.  Alden  casually  offered  it  to  him  again,  but  he  felt 
obliged  to  stand  by  his  original  action  rather  than  confess 
a  mistake.  He  desperately  ate  his  lettuce  plain,  as  if  he 
preferred  it  that  way ;  but  he  thought  everybody  saw  through 
his  ruse,  and  was  secretly  laughing  at  him. 

He  was  at  first  silent;  and  it  was  his  impression  that  he 
remained  so  throughout  the  evening.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact  Helen  managed  the  conversation  so  skilfully  —  she  knew 
upon  what  subjects  Felix  would  and  would  not  talk  —  that 
he  perforce  took  part  in  it  almost  at  once.  He  did  so  un 
consciously,  his  whole  mind  being  occupied  with  a  memory 
of  that  bungled  salad. 

After  dinner  they  all  went  to  a  great,  cool,  comfortable 
"  attic  "  room.  Felix,  sitting  down  at  once,  became  aware 
that  the  other  men  were  still  standing,  waiting  until  the 
women  were  seated.  Felix  turned  scarlet,  but  remained 


Initiation  183 

desperately  in  his  big  chair.  He  looked  at  Helen,  across 
the  room.  Mrs.  Alden,  at  his  side,  said  something  about 
poetry,  and  he  replied  with  a  long,  clear-cut  sentence,  which 
might  have  been  written  in  a  book  rather  than  uttered  in 
conversation.  Socially,  Felix  was  in  a  state  of  collapse  — 
except  for  Helen,  he  saw  nobody  in  the  room ;  but  his  powers 
of  speech  were  curiously  liberated.  He  was  in  a  daze,  al 
ternately  shot  through  with  red  flashes  of  shame  at  his 
clumsiness,  and  cooled  by  the  sea-blue  of  Helen's  eyes  across 
the  room.  The  slippery  floor,  the  salad,  and  that  last  piece 
of  ineptitude  here  in  the  attic,  chased  each  other  through 
his  mind  like  nightmares;  and  all  the  while,  in  utter  uncon 
sciousness,  he  talked.  When  he  ceased,  it  was  on  a  period, 
and  suddenly. 

There  was  a  startling  effect  to  this  talk,  so  unlike  human 
conversation.  It  was  as  though  he  were  reading  aloud.  .  .  . 

At  midnight  the  party  broke  up.  The  others  remarked 
to  their  hostess  what  a  nice  time  they  had  had,  and  bade  a 
special  and  kindly  good-bye  to  Felix,  asking  him  to  come  and 
see  them ;  which  so  confused  Felix  that  he  slipped  past  his 
hostess  without  a  farewell  greeting.  He  was  on  the  steps 
when  he  realized  his  omission;  he  turned  uncertainly,  but 
he  was  afraid  he  would  bungle  the  affair  still  more  if  he 
went  back.  So  he  stumbled  down  the  steps  and  ran  home, 
cursing  himself  for  a  clumsy  fool. 


XX  The  Art  of  Writing 


THE  next  day  after  the  party,  Felix  went  to  Helen's 
office  and  asked  her  forgiveness  for  the  way  he  had 
behaved. 

"Forgive  you  for  what?"  she  cried.  "You  did  beau 
tifully.  You  talked  wonderfully !  " 

"  But  I  didn't  say  a  word !  "  he  protested. 

"  You  talked  about  everything  under  the  sun,"  she  said 
laughingly.  "  Anthropology,  history,  poetry  —  heaven 
knows  what.  I  never  realized  you  knew  so  much ! " 

He  had  brought  her  a  poem,  but  she  put  it  aside  as  some 
thing  of  minor  importance.  **  Now  it's  begun,"  she  said, 
'*  and  you  must  keep  it  up.  Go  and  see  Tom  Alden  and 
Doyle  Clavering  this  week." 

Felix  shook  his  head.  <4 1  don't  think  they  want  'to  see 
me  again." 

"  Ridiculous  boy !  "  she  said. 


Felix  was  perhaps  half  right  about  Tom  Alden.  He  went 
to  the  Alden  house  twice,  and  Tom  talked  poetry  with  this 
strange  youth  for  an  hour  each  time;  but  neither  of  them 
profited  by  the  discussion. 

Tom's  wife  had  lightly  hazarded  the  opinion  that  Felix 
might  be  a  genius,  but  genius  was  a  thing  too  bright  and 
good  for  human  nature's  daily  food.  Her  own  tastes  were 
more  simple,  inclining,  she  added,  to  real  human  beings  like 
"this  fellow  Tom  here]" 

Helen  had  urged  Tom  beforehand  to  be  nice  to  Felix,  and 
he  had  only  said  enigmatically,  looking  speculatively  at  her: 

184 


The  Art  of  Writing  185 

"  Nice  ?  Are  you  quite  sure  you  know  how  to  be  nice  to  a 
poet?  Poets  are  kittle  cattle,  Helen."  And  now,  after  the 
event,  Tom  said  to  Helen  reflectively :  "  I  ought  to  like 
him.  But  how  can  you  like  a  person  who  isn't  there?  I 
like  everything  he  says.  But  there  doesn't  seem  to  be  any 
body  saying  it.  Darn  it  all,  Helen,  he  isn't  real!  He's 
like  a  sprite,  a  —  a  fay !  " 

With  Doyle  Clavering,  Felix  succeeded  a  little  better. 
He  found  that  Clavering  could  teach  him  something  about 
writing  poetry  —  the  patient  and  critical  process  of  revision. 
He  came  to  feel  a  great  respect  and  liking  for  Clavering, 
and  under  his  tutelage  his  poems  grew  day  by  day  more  an 
artistic  product  and  less  an  irresponsible  mode  of  self-ex 
pression. 

Meanwhile  he  continued  his  visits  to  Helen  —  as  wistful 
and  baffled  as  ever.  He  began  to  try  to  find  flaws  in  her ; 
he  noted  with  a  savage  joy  the  bad  taste  of  her  two-column- 
to-the-page  edition  of  Shelley.  The  lovely  hand-tooled 
binding  which  she  had  proudly  shown  him,  only  made  the 
lapse  more  glaring.  To  put  a  beautiful  binding  like  that  on 
an  unreadable,  dictionary-like  edition  of  a  book  of  poems! 
.  .  .  Yet  he  could  not  stay  away  from  her. 

Both  she  and  Clavering  were  looking  forward  to  the 
publication  of  some  of  his  poems  in  the  magazines.  Both 
of  them  regarded  acceptance  by  a  "  good  "  magazine  as  hav 
ing  significance.  But  to  Felix  the  process  by  which  this 
goal  was  achieved,  made  it  seem  dull  and  vulgar.  Clavering 
had  described  to  him  his  "  record-book,"  in  which  he  put 
down  the  statistics  of  his  poetic  career.  He  told  of  one 
poem  which  had  "  been  the  rounds  "  of  all  the  magazines, 
not  merely  once,  but  twice  —  and  was  finally  accepted,  the 
third  time,  by  the  Century.  It  was  this  anecdote  which 
suddenly  gave  Felix  a  revulsion  against  the  career  into  which 
he  was  understood  to  be  entering  —  and  a  sudden  bitter 
anger  against  Helen. 

She  had  been  waiting  for  the  "  right "  poem  with  which 
to  begin  publication.  And  he  had  devoutly  accepted  her 


i86  Moon-Calf 

sense  of  Tightness  as  divinely  just.  Now,  however,  he  felt 
that  she  had  betrayed  him  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy  — 
she  was  only  waiting  for  a  poem  which  the  editor  of  the 
Century  would  like!  It  was  for  him  that  Felix  was  revis 
ing  his  poems,  not  for  Helen,  least  of  all  for  himself.  .  .  . 
He  felt  that  he  had  been  fooled  again. 

He  wrote  a  poem  which  he  did  not  dare  show  her  for  a 
long  time  —  he  did  not  quite  know  why.  .  .  . 

When  shall  I  cease  to  take  delight 
In  forms  of  transient  grace ?  — 
Will-o'-the-wisps  that  all  the  night 
Flicker  before  my  face! 

O  sometime  shall  I  not  be  less 
A  creature  of  desire, 
With  gain  of  autumn  happiness 
For  loss  of  April  Href 

Nay,  I  was  sent  a  wanderer 
On  Beauty's  desperate  quest  — 
To  go  for  ever  seeking  Her, 
Nor,  ere  I  find  her,  rest. 

And  this  last  form,  so  frail  and  fleet, 
Whereafter  run  tonight 
My  weary  and  enamoured  feet  — 
So  dear  it  seems  and  bright!  — 

Now,  having  lured  me  once  again 
O'er  wild  of  hill  and  dale, 
Shall  this  last  foolish  fantom  wane, 
This  beacon  fade  and  fail.  .  .  . 

But  past  the  fantom  names  I  see 
The  waiting  face  of  Her 
For  whose  high  sake  one  well  might  be 
God's  weariest  wanderer! 

At  last  he  took  it  to  her,  as  an  excuse  for  seeing  her. 
She  was  radiant  with  delight.     "This,"  she  said,  "  will 
do  for  the  Century!" 

3 

Felix  went  out  from  Helen's  office  to  wander  in  the  streets. 
But  tonight  he  was  not  unconscious  of  the  world.     He  was 


The  Art  of  Writing  187 

acutely  aware  of  it.  It  was  Saturday  night.  He  looked 
in  the  shop  windows,  he  looked  at  the  passing  crowds,  he 
looked  at  the  faces  and  bodies  of  pretty  girls.  He  paused 
in  front  of  a  faker  vending  some  marvellous  knife  which 
would  peel  potatoes  and  core  apples  without  waste,  all  with 
a  simple  twist  of  the  wrist,  ten  cents,  a  dime.  Felix  was 
wondering  if  perhaps  that  way  of  making  a  living  were  not 
painful  to  the  man.  The  same  words  over  and  over,  the 
same  thin  trickle  of  dirty  dimes,  night  after  night.  .  .  . 
Surely  he  would  not  voluntarily  choose  that  career  for  him 
self :  he  must  inwardly  loathe  it.  And  then  it  occurred  to 
Felix  that  the  shops  into  whose  windows  he  had  been  gazing 
were  a  part  of  the  same  scheme.  The  passing  crowds  were 
a  part  of  it  —  every  man  among  them  did  the  same,  es 
sentially  the  same,  sort  of  thing  for  a  living.  Even  the 
girls  whose  beauty  had  touched  and  allured  him  were  using 
that  beauty  in  the  effort  to  secure  a  home,  just  as  this  man 
was  using  his  stale  jests,  his  catch-penny  phrases,  over  and 
over,  to  the  dull  crowd. 

Felix  lingered  until  the  crowd  thinned  out,  the  street- 
vendor  went  away,  and  he  was  left  at  last  alone  on  the 
corner  with  a  short  fat  little  old  man  whose  face  was  un 
shaven  and  upon  whose  vest  were  the  stains  of  last  week's 
soup.  Felix  laughed.  The  man  looked  at  him. 

"Life  is  funny,  isn't  it?"  He  did  not  want  the  man  to 
think  he  had  been  laughing  at  him. 

'*  Funny  ?  "  replied  the  man,  and  appeared  to  consider  the 
matter.  "  Well,  if  you  can  just  continue  to  think  so,  you're 
safe.  If  Nietzsche  had  had  a  sense  of  humour,  he  wouldn't 
have  gone  mad." 

4<  Did  he  go  mad?  "  asked  Felix. 

"Yes.  Absolutely  batty."  They  walked  off  together. 
"  You  see,  he  was  lonely.  You  have  to  find  common  ground 
with  other  people.  So  you  have  to  take  sides  with  them 
against  yourself." 

They  finished  their  talk  in  an  office  in  which  the  man 
slept.  He  was  a  chiropodist.  His  name  was  Wheels.  He 


i88  Moon-Calf 

had  a  philosophy  of  his  own.  .  .  .  The  world  was  ugly  and 
cruel  —  essentially  so.  It  always  had  been  and  it  always 
would  be.  He  despised  the  reformers  who  thought  they 
were  making  it  better  by  their  "  poultices  " ;  while  as  for 
the  Socialists,  who  hoped  to  cure  it  altogether,  his  scorn 
for  them  took  the  form  of  a  profound  chuckle.  They  were 
at  least  amusing,  so  egregious  was  their  folly.  .  .  . 

But  though  life  was  evil,  there  were  compensations.  Of 
these,  the  best  was  Ignorance;  but  only  those  who  were  so 
fortunate  as  to  be  in  a  position,  at  least  for  the  time  being, 
to  infect  rather  than  to  suffer  cruelty,  could  be  really 
ignorant  of  the  nature  of  things.  That  had  not  fallen  to 
his  own  lot.  And  the  second  compensation,  that  of  For 
getting,  in  the  intoxication  of  wine  and  women  and  art, 
was  also  denied  him :  '*  I  have  a  weak  stomach,  I  am  fat 
and  old,  and  I  have  a  curious  defect  of  my  senses  which 
makes  me  colour-blind  and  tone-deaf,  so  that  I  can  enjoy 
neither  wine,  women  nor  art."  He  was  reduced  to  de 
pendence  upon  the  final  compensation,  Laughter.  .  .  . 

"  But  you,"  he  said  to  Felix,  *'  have  good  senses,  and 
moreover  you  are  neither  fat  nor  old.  My  philosophic 
laughter  will  not  satisfy  you  long.  But  while  you  need  it 
you  are  welcome  to  come  and  sit  with  me  and  grin  at  the 
tragedy  of  the  universe." 

Felix  talked  with  him  till  midnight,  and  went  home  re 
freshed  as  by  a  bitter  tonic. 

4 

The  poem  was,  after  consultation  with  Clavering,  de 
spatched  to  the  Century.  Clavering  felt  that  the  ending 
"  might  be  stronger,"  and  Helen  was  inclined  to  agree  with 
him.  Their  clairvoyance,  it  appeared,  was  marvellous. 
The  editor  wrote  that  he  thought  the  ending  "  weak,"  but 
seemed  quite  favourably  disposed  toward  it  otherwise. 
"  That  means,"  said  Clavering,  "  they'll  accept  it  if  you 
change  the  ending." 

"  I  don't  know  how  to  change  it,"  said  Felix.     "  I  don't 


The  Art  of  Writing  189 

know  what  you  mean."  Clavering  explained,  but  Felix  was 
still  in  the  dark,  though  Helen  seconded  the  explanation. 

Thus  the  matter  lay  for  a  week,  in  which  Helen  guiltily 
tried  to  change  the  ending  in  conformity  to  her  idea  — 
just  to  show  Felix  what  she  meant.  She  let  Clavering  see 
her  attempt,  and  with  a  deft  stroke  or  two  he  had  perfected 
it.  Very  hesitantly  she  showed  it  to  Felix. 

'*  I  mean,  that's  the  sort  of  thing,"  she  said. 

Felix  read  it.  "/  follow  wind  and  bird  and  star,  and 
cloud  for  ever  flown."  Strange,  cold  phrases ;  and  "  for 
ever  flown  " —  how  silly !  "  The  fluttering  hem,  tk&  flying 
hair,  the  call  and  cry  of  One  these  eyes  shall  see  not, 
though  I  fare  onward  from  sun  to  sun!" 

Helen  looked  at  him  anxiously,  fearful  to  have  hurt  him 
by  this  tampering  with  his  poem.  He  looked  away.  He 
wanted  to  drop  the  whole  affair  on  the  spot,  and  let  the 
Century  go  hang.  But  —  was  it  that  he  felt  that  Helen 
secretly  wanted  him  to  refuse  to  compromise,  and  that  he 
must  act  in  defiance  of  her  wish  ?  Or  was  it  that  he  wanted 
to  think  she  wished  that,  and  dared  not  put  her  to  the 
test? 

He  groped  for  some  objective  reality  to  hold  fast  to,  and 
the  phrase  "  twenty  dollars  "  came  into  his  mind.  It  was 
what  he  would  get  if  he  sold  the  poem ;  Clavering  had  told 
him  so. 

He  turned  back  to  them,  smiling.  "  I  think  you  know 
best,"  he  said,  "  and  I  do  want  to  sell  the  poem,  and  the 
way  you  have  phrased  my  idea  seems  to  me  quite  beautiful 
—  I  can't  think  of  any  way  to  improve  it  —  so  if  you  don't 
mind,  I  guess  we'll  just  send  in  this  version  as  it  stands." 

Helen  sighed. —  Was  it  a  sigh  of  relief,  or  of  disap 
pointment  ?  '*  You're  sure,  Felix,"  she  said  urgently,  "  that 
you  don't  mind  ?  " 

"  Mind?  No!  "  he  laughed.  "  I'm  very  grateful  to  you 
both,  and  I  hope  the  editor  has  sense  enough  to  know  a 
good  poem  when  he  sees  it,  without " —  he  glanced  at  Clav 
ering — "making  us  wait  two  years." 


Moon-Calf 

He  went  out,  repeating  to  himself,  "  twenty  dollars, 
twenty  dollars." 

5 

A  week  later  he  visited  the  fat  philosopher  in  his  office. 
They  talked  of  many  things,  and  along  towards  midnight, 
apropos  of  something  or  other,  Wheels  tried  to  quote  a  line 
from  the  Garden  of  Proserpine.  He  quoted  it  incorrectly, 
and  Felix  took  it  up  and  repeated  it  to  the  end.  "  You 
write  poetry  yourself,  perhaps  ?  "  suggested  Wheels. 

*'  No/'  said  Felix.  "  I  did.  I  had  my  first  poem  ac 
cepted  today." 

Wheels  looked  at  him  shrewdly.  "Don't  let  that  dis 
courage  you,"  he  said.  "  Let's  hear  it." 

Felix  recited  the  poem,  giving  his  own  version,  with  the 
change  of  a  single  word: 

But  past  the  fantom  flames  I  see 
No  waiting  face  of  Her 
For  whose  high  sake  one  well  might  'je 
God's  weariest  wanderer. 

"  I  must  go  home  now,"  said  Felix.  "  Tomorrow's  Mon 
day.  School  ended  last  week.  I  got  a  job  yesterday,  and 
tomorrow  morning  I  start  to  work." 


XXI  Work 


FELIX  had  wasted  no  time  in  choosing  the  kind  of 
work  he  was  going  to  do.  He  had  gone  back  to 
the  candy-factory  where  he  had  been  told  there 
might  be  something  for  him  in  the  summer.  A  man  in  the 
office,  after  looking  him  over  and  referring  to  a  memo 
randum  on  his  desk,  sent  him  to  the  stick-candy  department 
on  the  fourth  floor.  As  Felix  went  from  the  office  into  the 
factory,  his  nostrils  were  at  once  assailed  by  the  familiar 
odour  of  sweets  which  lay  heavily  over  the  whole  place. 
On  his  way  to  the  elevator  he  saw  rows  of  aproned  girls 
furiously  and  skilfully  dipping  chocolates.  He  had  a  glimpse 
of  dozens  of  men  and  boys  at  work  on  the  different  floors, 
and  was  a  little  awed  by  the  vastness  of  the  place.  It  would 
not  be  like  the  cosy  little  factory  in  Vickley,  where  the  girls 
sang  at  their  work.  And  how  impossible  it  was  to  im 
agine,  among  those  rows  of  intent,  chocolate-smeared  work 
ers,  another  Margaret!  That  episode  seemed  like  an  idyl 
out  of  his  lost  youth. 

He  interviewed  the  foreman,  and  was  immediately  hired 
at  seven  dollars  a  week  to  run  a  "  vacuum  pan."  The  fore 
man  was  thus  enabled  to  lay  off  that  afternoon  a  youth  who 
had  worked  there  since  the  preceding  summer,  and  had 
risen  to  fifteen  dollars  a  week. 

2 

On  Monday  morning,  Felix  reached  the  factory  at  half- 
past  six,  as  he  had  been  instructed.  There  was  no  one  in 
the  whole  place  except  the  surly  Swedish  janitor  who  took 
Felix  up  in  the  freight-elevator,  and  the  man  waiting  on 

191 


192  Moon-Calf 

the  fourth  floor  to  teach  Felix  his  work.  This  was  one  of 
the  candymakers  Felix  had  seen  there  on  Saturday  —  a  big, 
plump  man,  like  an  over-grown  baby. 

"  Are  you  the  new  man  ? "  he  inquired  pleasantly,  but 
with  a  sarcastic  intent  which  he  emphasized  by  looking  Felix 
up  and  down. 

"  As  it  were,"  Felix  replied  ironically. 

"  Well,"  said  the  big  fellow,  "  step  over  here,  as  it  were, 
and  I'll  show  you,  as  it  were,  what  you're  to  do."  He  led 
the  way  to  a  great  closed  vessel  of  shining  copper  that  stood 
against  the  wall,  flanked  on  one  side  by  a  large  open  kettle 
and  on  the  other  by  a  small  steam  suction-pump.  The  fat- 
bellied  vacuum-pan  with  its  radiating  pipes  seemed  to  Felix 
like  a  great  red  spider  at  the  centre  of  its  web. 

It  appeared  that  it  was  Felix's  job  to  feed  this  monster 
with  sugar  and  glucose,  once  every  hour,  ten  times  a  day. 
The  candymaker  proceeded  to  weigh  out  the  first  *'  batch  " 
—  forty  pounds  of  sugar  and  sixty  of  glucose.  He 
hoisted  these  ingredients  to  the  edge  of  the  open  vessel  and 
spilled  them  in,  one  after  the  other,  with  a  graceful  gesture 
of  his  big  arms,  stirred  them  together,  and  turned  on  the 
steam.  In  ten  minutes  it  was  cooked  enough  to  be  drawn 
into  the  closed  vessel  and  cooked  again,  while  the  pump 
kept  the  steam-pressure  down  below  the  danger-point.  The 
big  candymaker  explained  the  theory  of  it  to  Felix,  and  it 
all  seemed  simple  enough.  The  man  merely  stood  watch 
ing  the  thermometer  and  the  steam  gauge.  When  they  had 
arrived  synchronously  at  certain  figures,  the  batch  was 
done.  The  heat  was  shut  off,  the  engine  stopped,  and  with 
the  jerk  of  a  metal  arm  projecting  from  underneath  the 
vessel,  a  flood  as  of  molten  gold  poured  out  into  a  kettle 
that  stood  underneath. 

At  the  same  moment  the  seven  o'clock  whistle  blew,  peo 
ple  suddenly  appeared  at  their  places  all  over  the  great 
room,  and  three  other  candymakers  came  up.  Two  of 
them  seized  the  handles  of  the  kettle,  carried  it  swiftly  to 
one  of  the  stone-topped  tables,  and  poured  it  out.  The 


Work  193 

big  candymaker  divided  it  into  portions,  and  they  com 
menced  to  knead  coloured  powders  into  it. 

Trying  carefully  to  remember  the  precise  order  of  opera 
tions,  Felix  started  to  work  on  the  second  batch.  He  had 
been  told  that  this  one  was  "  fifty-fifty."  It  was  all  he 
could  do,  he  found,  to  lift  fifty  pounds  of  sugar  or  of 
glucose  to  the  edge  of  the  open  vessel.  And  he  discov 
ered,  when  it  was  cooked  and  drawn  into  the  vacuum-pan, 
that  the  heat  and  steam-pressure  would  not  reach  their 
destined  figures  without  constant  management.  Reaching 
up  hastily  to  one  of  the  cocks  by  which  the  heat  was  con 
trolled,  Felix  burned  his  arm  against  a  steam-pipe.  And 
once,  when  the  big  candymaker  had  strolled  up  to  see  how 
he  was  getting  along  the  suction-pump  suddenly  stopped. 
"  What  does  that  mean  ?  "  Felix  asked,  turning  helplessly 
to  him. 

The  big  candymaker  gravely  pointed  to  the  dial,  where 
the  hand  was  flickering  around  toward  a  place  marked 
DANGER.  Felix  looked,  sprang  at  the  recalcitrant  piston 
and  struck  it  with  his  fist.  The  engine  started  again,  and 
the  dial  hand  sank  back. 

The  big  candymaker  nodded  approval,  and  added,  "  That 
engine's  cranky.  Sometime  she'll  stop,  and  you  won't  be 
able  to  get  her  started  again.  I  suppose  you  know  what'll 
happen  then." 

"  No,"  said  Felix. 

'*  The  whole  thing  will  blow  up,  and  one  hundred  pounds 
of  red  hot  candy  will  hit  the  ceiling.  If  you're  underneath 
when  it  comes  down,  it  might "—  he  looked  Felix  over 
critically  — 4<  spoil  them  nice  new  overalls." 

Felix  looked  upon  the  engine  henceforth  with  grim  re 
spect.  He  finished  the  day  with  no  untoward  difficulties, 
but  felt  too  tired  to  visit  his  friend  Wheels  that  evening,  as 
he  had  intended. 

The  next  morning,  after  he  had  cooked  his  first  batch  and 
weighed  out  his  second,  he  strolled  over  to  spend  his  leisure 
in  watching  the  men  pull  the  candy.  It  was  a  kind  of 


1Q4  Moon-Calf 

taffy-pulling  on  an  enormous  scale,  ten  or  twenty  pounds 
to  the  lump,  flung  over  iron  hooks  set  in  the  wooden  pillars, 
and  caught  and  flung  back  with  a  swift  and  graceful  motion 
which  he  could  not  but  admire.  This  time,  however,  the 
big  candymaker  cut  off  a  portion  and  tossed  it  to  Felix. 
He  caught  it  innocently,  and  both  men  laughed  when  he 
nearly  dropped  it.  He  had  forgotten  that  it  was  so  hot! 
But  he  dared  not  drop  it,  so  he  threw  it  hastily  and  with 
all  his  might  over  the  nearest  hook.  But  he  had  to  catch 
it  and  throw  it  back  again  instantly,  or  it  would  fall  to  the 
floor. 

The  pain  of  the  molten  candy  on  his  unaccustomed 
hands  seemed  unbearable,  and  he  cast  a  wild  look  about 
for  help.  The  others  were  grinning  at  his  discomfiture 
while  with  indifferent  ease  they  tossed  their  candy  over  the 
hooks.  But  that  glance  showed  him  that  they  had  dipped 
their  hands  in  starch.  With  a  quick  flaming  anger  at  their 
cruelty  in  letting  him  go  at  the  work  with  naked  hands,  he 
set  his  teeth,  feigned  indifference  to  the  pain,  and  pulled 
with  desperate  steadiness.  The  candy  cooled  quickly,  but 
by  the  time  it  was  finished  he  had  eight  blisters  —  one  on 
each  finger-tip. 

"  How  do  you  like  it?  "  asked  one  of  the  candymakers,  a 
little  Dutchman. 

"  Very  amusing,"  said  Felix,  and  walked  av/ay.  But  the 
big  candymaker  called  him  back.  **  How's  your  stock  of 
glucose?  Running  low,  isn't  it?"  Felix  looked.  It  was 
almost  gone.  '*  Then  you'd  better  hustle  down  cellar  and 
get  another  barrel." 

Searching  for  glucose  in  the  long,  rambling  cellar,  Felix 
was  reminded,  in  a  flash  of  memory,  of  that  long  hopeless 
search  he  had  once  made,  as  a  child  in  the  Maple  school, 
for  the  mop.  The  analogy  threatened  not  to  end  there,  for 
when  he  found  the  glucose,  rising  barrel  after  barrel  and 
tier  after  tier  in  the  half  darkness,  he  was  overcome  with 
a  deeper  sense  of  that  same  childish  helplessness.  The 
nearest  glucose  barrel  was  held  down  by  a  pyramid  of 


Work  195 

seven  others,  each  weighing  three  hundred  pounds.     Felix 
weighed  a  hundred  and  twenty-five. 

"  It's  like  moving  the  earth,"  he  said  to  himself ;  and 
then,  with  seeming  irrelevance,  wondered  who  had  said 
that  before  —  or  something  like  it.  Moving  the  earth?  .  .  . 
Ah!  Archimedes!  It  was  not  wholly  to  no  practical  pur 
pose  that  Felix  had  a  good  literary  memory,  for  with  a 
chuckle  he  started  off  to  find  a  lever. 

A  barrel  stave  had  to  serve.  With  it  he  pried  the  barrel 
loose,  barely  escaping  destruction  from  the  other  seven  that 
thundered  down.  Then  he  trundled  it  along  the  dark  pas 
sageway,  sweating  and  tugging  to  get  it  over  the  irregulari 
ties  in  the  floor.  To  roll  a  three  hundred  pound  barrel  up 
a  three-inch  step  took  all  the  strength  and  all  the  endurance 
and  all  the  will  he  could  muster  —  which  was  much  more 
than  he  knew  he  had.  When  he  finally  reached  the  eleva 
tor,  he  was  so  exhausted  that  he  could  hardly  coax  his 
barrel  up  the  inch  that  intervened  between  the  floor  of  the 
elevator  and  the  floor  of  the  cellar.  Arriving  at  last,  he 
found  that  it  had  taken  him  twenty  minutes,  and  that  he 
was  five  minutes  late  in  starting  his  batch. 

The  rest  of  the  day  was  uneventful,  except  that  his 
blisters  came  off  the  next  time  he  pulled  candy,  and  the 
starch  didn't  seem  to  help  that  much.  After  he  had  fin-' , 
ished  the  last  batch,  and  swept  up  the  spilt  sugar  from  the 
dirty  floor  and  put  it  aside  in  a  barrel  with  other  sweepings 
to  be  used  in  horehound  candy,  he  went  home.  This  time, 
after  supper,  he  changed  his  clothes  and  went  to  the  library, 
where  he  secured  a  volume  of  strange-looking  poems  which 
had  intrigued  him  in  previous  glances  at  its  pages.  He 
took  it  home  and  read  it  in  bed  until  he  was  ready  to  fall 
asleep.  It  was  Walt  Whitman's  "  Leaves  of  Grass." 


XXII  The  Factory  World 


BEFORE  the  week  was  over,  the  raw  spots  on  Felix's 
finger  ends  were  replaced  by  callous  skin,  and 
pulling  candy  was  no  longer  painful.  He  had 
learned  his  work  well  enough  to  have  some  leisure  in  which 
to  watch  the  men  make  stick  candy.  He  had  wondered,  as 
a  child,  how  those  red  and  blue  flowers  were  "  put  inside  " 
the  sticks.  Now  the  mystery  was  unveiled  for  him.  .  .  . 
He  saw  the  big  candymaker  form  a  huge  stick  of  candy  a 
foot  in  diameter  and  only  about  a  foot  long,  in  which  strips 
of  coloured  candy  had  been  arranged  so  as  to  make  in  cross 
section  a  six  petalled  flower.  This  short  fat  stick  was 
rolled  and  stretched  and  cut  in  two  and  rolled  again,  until 
before  his  eyes  it  became  a  row  of  slender  rods  fifteen  feet 
long,  in  which  the  gigantic  posy  had  dwindled  down  to  its 
intended  size.  These  rods  were  scissored  into  candy-stick 
lengths,  and  left  for  an  invading  crowd  of  tired-looking 
frowsy  girls  to  pack  into  pasteboard  cartons. 

Felix  had  leisure,  too,  in  which  to  talk  with  the  men; 
with  the  two  of  them  at  least  who  were  so  disposed  —  the 
big  candymaker,  who  was  called  "  Elephant,"  and  the  little 
one,  who  was  called  "  Dutch."  These  two  were  old  hands 
and  fast  friends.  They  were  adept  at  solemnly  sarcastic 
badinage,  and  they  appreciated  Felix's  gifts  in  that  direc 
tion.  They  had  for  him  as  a  worker  a  tolerant  and  amused 
contempt;  but  they  liked  to  hear  him  talk. 

Felix  soon  found  that  long  words  and  bookish  phrases  en 
tertained  them  most  of  all,  and  it  became  his  custom  to 
introduce  them  casually  into  his  conversation.  On  Satur- 

196 


The  Factory  World  197 

day  morning  they  informed  him  that  it  was  the  custom  to 
"  wet "  a  new  pair  of  overalls.  This,  it  appeared  on  ex 
planation,  meant  that  the  owner  of  the  new  overalls  bought 
everybody  else  a  drink.  *'  The  custom,"  said  Felix,  "  shall 
not  be  allowed  to  fall  into  innocuous  desuetude." 

They  regarded  this  saying  as  a  first-rate  witticism,  and 
Elephant  went  about  repeating  it.  Before  long  the  phrase 
became  "  knock-kneed  steweytood,"  and  was  understood  to 
refer  to  the  clumsiness  of  the  person  to  whom  it  was  ad 
dressed.  This  transformation  was  assisted  by  Felix's  mis 
pronunciation  of  the  word  "  desuetude,"  which  he  made  into 
four  syllables,  accented  on  the  first  "  u."  His  knowledge 
of  words  had  been  gained  by  eye  and  not  by  ear;  hundreds 
of  the  words  he  used,  he  had  never  heard  spoken  aloud,  and 
some  of  them  he  inevitably  mispronounced. 

Saturday  was  a  short  day.  After  a  single  batch  in  the 
afternoon,  they  devoted  an  hour  to  cleaning  up.  The  sugar 
and  broken  fragments  of  candy  were  swept  up  and  saved. 
Then  hot  water  was  poured  on  the  floor  to  loosen  the  scurf 
of  sticky  mud,  and  this  was  scraped  off  with  spades  and 
hoes  and  mopped  away.  Felix's  last  task  was  to  scour  his 
copper  vessels  to  a  spotless  and  shining  cleanliness.  This 
was  done  with  a  rag  soaked  in  tartaric  acid.  Its  effect  on 
the  brown  stained  surfaces  of  the  metal  was  miraculous. 
The  only  difficulty  was  that  Felix's  hands  and  arms  were 
covered  with  unhealed  scratches  and  raw  burns,  and  in 
them  the  tartaric  acid  was  hell-fire  and  poison. 

Nevertheless  the  agony  had  to  be  endured  until  every 
inch  of  the  copper  surfaces,  which  seemed  to  be  miles  in 
extent,  had  been  scoured.  Also  the  acid  got  in  his  eyes, 
and  blinded  him,  and  in  his  torment  he  put  his  knuckle  in 
his  eye  and  rubbed  more  acid  in,  and  there  was  nothing  to 
be  done  except  wait  until  the  acid,  diluted  with  tears,  had 
lost  its  strength.  Blinded  and  weeping,  Felix  lay  on 
the  freshly  mopped  floor  under  the  great  vacuum-pan, 
scouring  away  its  last  spot  under  the  coolly  appraising  eye 
of  Elephant  and  Dutch, 


198  Moon-Calf 

At  last  it  was  finished.     "  Now  we'll  wet  them  new  over 
alls,"  said  Dutch  cheerfully. 


The  other  two  candymakers  deigned  to  accompany  them, 
and  all  five  lined  up  at  Elephant's  favourite  bar.  It  was 
the  first  time  Felix  had  ever  taken  part  in  the  ceremony  of 
buying  a  drink.  Much  embarrassed,  and  not  knowing  what 
to  say  or  do,  he  stood  there  with  his  pay  envelope  in  his 
hand,  while  the  barkeeper  waited.  The  pause  became  un 
comfortable.  Felix  shook  a  five  dollar  gold  piece  and  two 
silver  dollars  out  of  his  envelope  and  laid  one  of  the  dollars 
on  the  mahogany  surface  in  silence. 

Elephant  prompted  tactfully.  "You  say,  What'll  you 
have?" 

"  What  will  you  have  ?  "  Felix  repeated. 

"  Beer  for  me,"  said  Elephant.  "  One  of  them  big 
ones." 

They  all  took  beer,  and  five  "  big  ones  "  were  pushed  out. 
Felix  tasted  his  gingerly.  It  was  bitter,  and  he  had  never 
liked  the  taste  of  it ;  but  he  did  not  want  these  men  to  know 
that  he  was  unaccustomed  to  it,  so  he  began  to  swallow  it 
quickly.  **  Well,  here's  looking,"  said  Elephant  hastily,  sup 
plying  the  ceremonial  phrase  which  Felix  should  have  ut 
tered,  and  the  four  glasses  were  tilted  up. 

A  week  had  passed  in  Felix's  career  as  a  workingman. 
During  that  week  he  had  been  under  a  scrutiny  closer  than 
the  momentary  one  of  the  foreman's.  He  had  been  sub 
jected  to  a  realistic  appraisal.  As  a  worker  he  did  not  pass 
muster;  Elephant  and  Dutch  could  have  foretold  the  first 
day  how  little  use  he  was  likely  to  be  about  a  factory  — 
but  that  was  the  foreman's  concern,  not  theirs.  It  was 
chiefly  as  a  human  being  that  they  had  him  up  for  con 
sideration;  and,  as  a  human  being,  on  the  whole  they  liked 
him.  He  was  rather  odd;  but  not  so  odd  as  to  be  set 
utterly  apart,  laughed  at  behind  his  back,  made  the  victim  of 
hostile  contempt,  or,  what  is  worse,  shunned  and  ostracized. 


The  Factory  World  199 

They  were  tolerant  of  oddness ;  so  long  as  the  odd  one  was 
a  good  sport,  and  took  or  parried  the  thrusts  of  their  sarcasm 
with  ease,  he  was  acceptable.  They  accepted  Felix.  This 
round  of  drinks  at  Elephant's  favourite  bar  was  in  a  sense 
his  initiation  into  their  fellowship. 

Of  all  this,  Felix  was  quite  unconscious.  Perhaps,  in  a 
blundering  and  painful  way,  he  was  learning  the  uses  of  the 
real  world ;  but  they  meant  nothing  to  him.  He  was  in 
this  scene  but  not  of  it.  When  he  had  dutifully  finished  his 
beer  to  the  last  drop,  Elephant  proposed  another.  But 
Felix  conceived  the  event  as  finished,  so  far  as  he  was  con 
cerned.  "  No  thanks,"  he  said,  and  hurried  out.  He  was 
anxious  to  get  his  supper  over  and  go  somewhere. 


But  where  ?  To  the  library  ?  No  —  books  would  not  do 
tonight. 

To  see  Helen?  She  would  be  sorry  about  his  having  to 
go  to  work,  and  he  could  not  bear  that. 

To  visit  old  Wheels,  then? 

It  was  not  precisely  philosophy  that  he  wanted.  .  .  .  But 
he  did  go  to  see  Wheels.  And  after  a  few  minutes  the  fat 
sage,  looking  reflectively  at  the  discontented  youth  sitting 
on  the  edge  of  the  opposite  chair,  said, — 

41  I'll  tell  you.  Let's  go  to  the  Island  and  sit  in  the  cool 
breeze  and  listen  to  the  music  and  drink  some  beer;  and 
maybe  you  can  find  a  pretty  girl  to  dance  with  you." 

"Good,"  said  Felix.    "Let's!" 


XXIII  Adventure 


THE  Island,  as  they  approached  it  on  the  ferry,  was 
a  golden  glow  of  lights.  Snatches  of  music  from 
the  dancing  pavilions  were  wafted  to  them  on  the 
faint,  intermittent  breeze,  together  with  the  damp  smell  of 
trees.  They  found  themselves  a  table  in  one  of  the  pavil 
ions  at  the  edge  of  the  dancing  floor,  and  while  Wheels 
judiciously  praised  the  quality  of  the  Port  Royal  beer  he 
was  drinking,  Felix  left  his  untasted,  and  watched  with 
fierce  envy  the  slender  girls  who  were  whirled  past  in  the 
arms  of  young  men.  At  last  he  could  endure  it  no  longer, 
and  rose  suddenly. 

'*  Let's  go  somewhere  else,"  he  said. 

Wheels  amiably  complied,  but  halted  by  one  of  the  little 
tables,  lighted  by  a  string  of  electric  lights  that  zigzagged 
among  the  trees,  a  place  half  way  between  the  blaze  of 
crowded  gaiety  in  the  pavilions  and  the  shadows  of  the 
wood  beyond  in  which  sweethearts  wandered  and  paused 
unseen. 

"  It  is,"  said  Wheels,  "  an  ancient  privilege  of  youth  to 
seek  its  kind.  I  will  not  deter  you  longer.  If  I  were  your 
age,  I  too  would  go  and  get  acquainted  with  one  of  those 
charming  girls  who  are  wandering,  two  by  two,  seeking  for 
company." 

"  Get  acquainted  with  them  ?  "  repeated  Felix.  "  I  only 
wish  I  knew  how  to  go  about  it." 

"  Happily,"  said  the  fat  philosopher,  **  that  is  a  realm  of 
action  in  which  no  possible  method  can  fail.  There  is  no 
wrong  way  to  go  about  it  —  provided  always  that  one  is 
young,  and  not  fat.  Any  way  will  do.  The  most  time- 
honoured  way  is  to  mention  the  weather. —  But  you  know 

200 


Adventure  201 

these  things  as  well  as  I  do;  no  doubt  better.  Only,  it 
occurs  to  me  that  perhaps  you  hesitate  on  account  of  money  ? 
Well,  you  can  have  everything  that  this  place  has  to  offer 
for  five  dollars,  and  still  have  carfare  home.  Good-bye." 

Felix  mechanically  shook  the  proffered  hand.  He  did  not 
understand  what  it  meant  until  he  found  a  crumpled  bill 
remaining  in  his  hand.  The  fat  philosopher  was  strolling 
away. 

2 

Felix  hesitated,  put  the  bill  in  his  pocket,  and  sat  down. 
He  felt  uneasily  under  a  certain  obligation  to  fulfil  his 
friend's  expectations,  to  furnish  him  -with  the  vicarious  ad 
venture  of  which  he  had  spoken.  He  looked  across  at 
another  table  where  two  girls  had  been  sitting.  One  was 
just  going  away  on  the  arm  of  a  young  man  who  had  in 
vited  her  to  dance.  The  other,  a  girl  of  his  own  age  or  a 
little  older,  slender,  with  beautiful,  clear-cut  features  and 
a  radiant  mass  of  yellow  hair,  looked  after  them  as  they 
went  into  the  pavilion.  Then  her  glance  idly  drifted  back 
to  her  table,  and  for  an  instant  her  eyes  met  his.  Felix 
rose. 

He  would  perhaps  have  been  afraid  to  go  up  and  speak 
to  her,  save  that  he  had  just  received  in  so  philosophic  and 
authoritarian  a  form  the  information  that  he  would  not  be 
rebuffed.  Yet  he  was  surprised  when  he  found  himself 
walking  over  to  her.  She  looked  up  again  and  saw  him 
coming.  He  wondered  what  he  was  going  to  say  to  her. 
Anything,  he  told  himself.  But  suppose  he  could  not  think 
of  anything!  That  seemed  to  be  the  fact.  He  was  get 
ting  nearer  and  nearer  to  her,  and  still  he  had  not  thought  of 
anything  to  say.  He  made  these  observations  upon  himself 
with  a  kind  of  calm  amusement,  as  though  this  youth  who 
was  walking  toward  the  girl  were  another  person.  He 
wondered  what  that  youth  would  think  of  to  say.  Then 
for  a  moment  he  was  the  youth  again,  trying  desperately 
to  think.  He  had  to  say  something !  He  remembered  what 
Wheels  had  said  —  the  words  floated  slowly  through  his 


202  Moon-Calf 

mind  — "  the  time-honoured  way  is  to  mention  the  weather." 
He  was  amused  at  that.  Was  it  possible  that  that  shabby 
device  would  serve  as  an  introduction  to  this  radiant  and 
seemingly  inapproachable  creature?  He  rejected  the  idea 
on  her  behalf  with  scorn,  and  then  with  instantaneous 
cynicism  wondered  if  it  were  not  true.  .  .  .  All  this  had 
taken  but  a  few  seconds'  time,  for  she  was  only  a  few  steps 
away.  And  suddenly  he  found  himself  before  her,  lifting 
his  hat.  Then  his  duality  of  consciousness  vanished,  and 
he  said  with  an  effort,  "  It's  nice  and  cool  out  here  under 
the  trees,  isn't  it?" 

"  Yes,  isn't  it  ? "  echoed  the  girl.  He  was  astonished. 
That  shabby  device  had  served.  Well,  what  should  he  do 
now? 

He  laughed  and  spoke  again.  '*  I  want  to  dance  with 
you,"  he  said,  and  then  realized  that  he  had  never  danced 
in  his  life  .  .  .  except  years  and  years  ago,  in  the  garret, 
with  Rose.  She  had  taught  him  the  steps.  Would  he  re 
member  ?  "  But,"  he  added  aloud,  "  I  don't  dance  very 
well." 

She  smiled  and  rose.  "  That's  all  right,"  she  said,  put 
ting  a  hand  on  his  arm.  "  You've  only  to  let  yourself  go 
with  the  music." 

Again,  as  from  a  distance,  Felix  found  himself  looking 
with  calm  amusement  at  the  youth  who  was  entering  the 
dancing  pavilion  with  this  beautiful  unknown  girl-creature 
on  his  arm.  What  was  he  going  to  do  ?  Would  he  be  able 
to  dance?  The  band  struck  up  a  tune,  and  Felix,  after 
trying  to  decide  whether  it  was  a  waltz  or  a  two-step,  re 
membered  what  the  girl  had  said :  "  You've  only  to  let 
yourself  go  with  the  music."  He  listened,  and  let  himself 
go  —  and  discovered  that  he  was  dancing.  A  moment  later 
it  was,  it  seemed,  that  he  discovered  he  was  holding  a  girl 
in  his  arms.  He  was  surprised.  Then  —  it  seemed  to  him 
infinitely  absurd  —  he  remembered  how  it  had  come  about : 
"  the  time-honoured  way  is  to  mention  the  weather."  No ! 


Adventure  203 

that  was  too  preposterous.  He  glanced  down  at  her  cheek, 
saw  the  electric  light  broken  into  a  golden  shimmer  by 
wisps  of  her  hair,  held  her  tighter,  so  that  he  felt  her  bosom 
soft  against  his  own  —  and  still  it  did  not  seem  true. 

The  music  stopped.  "  You  dance  beautifully,"  she  said, 
and  sank  into  a  chair  by  one  of  the  little  tables.  He  re 
membered  his  five-dollar  bill,  and  beckoned  the  waiter. 
While  she  hesitated,  he  suggested:  "  Benedictine ?" — 
why,  he  did  not  know;  he  had  never  tasted  it  —  and  she 
nodded  yes. 

They  laughed  and  chatted  gaily  over  their  benedictine; 
afterward  he  could  not  remember  a  word  that  either  of 
them  had  said.  But  it  was  not  the  words,  it  was  boy  and 
girl,  getting  acquainted  —  words  did  not  particularly  mat 
ter.  And  by  the  time  the  benedictine  was  finished  he  felt 
well  enough  acquainted  with  her  to  hold  her  still  more 
tightly  in  his  arms  during  the  next  dance,  and  after  another 
drink  to  say,  "  Let's  walk." 

Leaning  on  his  arm,  she  came  with  him  out  of  the  blaze, 
through  the  cluster  of  tables,  into  the  darkness  of  the  great 
trees.  The  grass  was  damp.  Making  some  silly  jest  about 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  the  spirit  of  which  she  understood,  if 
not  the  historical  reference,  he  took  off  his  coat  and  spread 
it  down  for  them  to  sit  upon.  He  took  her  hand,  still 
talking  gaily,  played  with  the  fingers  of  it,  and  then  casually 
put  his  arm  around  her.  She  seemed  hardly  conscious  of 
his  embrace,  and  she  did  not  resist  when  he  drew  her  to  him 
and  kissed  her.  He  did  this  in  a  curiously  detached  way. 
It  was  as  though  he  could  not  quite  believe  that  all  this 
was  real.  Even  her  kiss  did  not  seem  real,  though  its 
warmth  and  softness  stirred  his  blood.  He  pressed  his 
mouth  more  tightly  to  hers,  and  her  lips  opened,  and  she 
clung-  to  him,  and  they  both  trembled.  And  still  it  did  not 
seem  to  Felix  as  though  it  were  actually  happening. 

Then  suddenly  she  drew  herself  away,  and  they  heard 
voices.  Two  men  were  coming  past,  arguing  loudly.  Felix 


204  Moon-Calf 

and  the  girl  held  tightly  each  other's  hand,  and  sat  quietly 
waiting  until  the  intruders  should  pass.  But  they  paused, 
a  dozen  feet  away. 


"  Nonsense !  "  one  of  the  voices  boomed.  "  If  that  is  all 
you  know  about  Socialism,  you  have  yet  much  to  learn. 
Municipal  ownership,  you  say!  I  concede  you,  street 
cars  are  something.  But  they  are  not  Socialism.  Nor  are 
old  age  pensions  Socialism.  They  have  them  in  Germany, 
from  which  I  came.  I  tell  you  what  you  think  you  want 
here  smells  to  me  too  much  like  that  state  of  affairs  which 
I  gladly  left  behind.  There  is  too  much  of  government,  too 
much  of  the  all-powerful  State,  in  your  ideal.  I  quarrel 
even  with  your  phrase,  '  Co-operative  commonwealth.'  I  do 
not  speak  of  commonwealths  —  I  speak  of  freedom,  of 
happiness,  of  a  world  altogether  new  and  beautiful.  .  .  ." 

They  had  moved  on,  and  the  other  man  was  replying  in 
indistinct  tones.  Felix  became  conscious  that  his  hold  on 
the  girl's  hand  had  relaxed.  She  laughed.  "  What  busi 
ness  have  they  got  here  ? "  she  demanded.  "  People  can 
argue  just  as  well  in  the  light!"  There  seemed  to  Felix 
something  metallic  in  her  voice. 

Presently  she  said,  "  I  don't  even  know  your  name  —  and 
you  haven't  asked  mine."  They  exchanged  that  informa 
tion.  Her  name  was  Daisy  Fisher.  It  struck  him  that 
Daisy  was  not  the  nicest  name  for  so  pretty  a  girl.  He 
looked  at  her  again,  wishing  to  recover  his  impressions  of 
her  beauty,  and  he  was  annoyed  at  the  darkness  which  made 
her  face  a  blur.  He  discovered  that  she  had  taken  her  hand 
away.  He  made  no  effort  to  recover  it. 

"  It  interested  me,  what  they  were  saying,"  he  told  her. 

"  Oh  —  are  you  a  Socialist?  " 

'*  No  —  not  exactly.     I   don't  know." 

"  I'm  a  Republican,"  she  said. 

"  Why  ?  "  he  asked  gravely. 


Adventure  205 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  said.     "  My  father  was." 

"Hmph!"  said  Felix. 

"  Well,"  said  the  girl,  "  it  doesn't  make  any  difference, 
anyway  —  I  don't  have  to  vote." 

"  And  you  don't  want  to  ?  " 

'*  Not  particularly."  Her  hand  stole  into  his  again.  He 
pressed  it.  He  remembered  that  he  had  been  intending  to 
make  violent  love  to  her  just  before  those  men  came  along ; 
now  he  did  not  want  to.  And  she?  He  wished  they  were 
back  in  the  light.  He  wondered  if  she  were  really  as 
beautiful  as  he  had  thought.  Her  hand  still  lay  in  his.  He 
pressed  it  again.  She  returned  the  pressure  softly.  With 
an  effort,  as  if  performing  a  duty,  he  put  his  arm  around 
her,  and  drew  her  toward  him.  This  time  she  resisted. 
"  No,  you  mustn't,"  she  said  reproachfully.  He  dropped 
his  arm. 


XXIV  Utopia 


THERE  was  a  silence,  in  which  Felix  was  torn  be 
tween  a  desire  to  recover  his  mastery  of  the  situa 
tion  and  a  desire  to  be  out  of  it  altogether.     Then 
the  girl  said,  "  Let's  go  back  and  dance." 

"  All  right,"  said  Felix,  and  jumped  up.  They  came 
back  blinking  into  the  light.  Felix  stole  a  glance  at  her. 
She  was  beautiful.  .  .  . 

"  Oh ! "  cried  the  girl  suddenly,  seizing  Felix's  arm,  and 
dragging  him  through  the  crowd.  "  There's  some  people  I 
know.  Ben!  Ben!" 

Felix  came  along  unwillingly.  He  felt  that  he  did  not 
want  to  know  this  Ben.  Still  less,  if  possible,  did  he  want 
to  know  the  Dick  and  Tillie  and  Grace  and  Harry  and 
Ethel  who  composed  Ben's  party.  Not  that  there  seemed 
to  be  any  reason  why  he  should  not  want  to  know  them. 
The  girls  were  young  and  pretty  and  in  the  best  of  spirits, 
the  boys  a  jolly  trio.  But  Felix  suddenly  became  taciturn. 
It  was  all  the  more  curious,  for  in  a  wondering  flash  of 
memory  he  recalled  that  while  sitting  with  Daisy  at  the  little 
table  after  their  first  dance  he  had  had  dozens  of  amusing 
little  things  to  say.  She  remembered  it  too,  for  she  laughed 
and  said  to  him,  "  What's  the  matter,  Felix  ?  Cat  got  your 
tongue  ?  " 

And  a  little  later,  when  his  silence  still  persisted,  she 
turned  to  him  under  cover  of  the  general  hilarity  and  said : 
**  I  know  how  you  feel,  Felix.  A  crowd  of  new  people 
always  bother  me  at  first.  But  you've  just  got  to  join  in 
—  it's  all  right  if  you  try." 

206 


Utopia  207 

*'  She  presumes  to  encourage  me,"  he  thought  haughtily, 
and  was  more  morose  than  ever. 

A  moment  later  his  wandering  eye  caught  a  glimpse  of 
two  figures  who  seemed  somehow  familiar,  and  then  the 
voice  booming  out  made  it  certain;  yes,  they  were  the  men 
who  had  passed  among  the  trees.  The  one  who  had  been 
talking  —  who  was,  indeed,  still  talking,  in  a  decisive  man 
ner  and  in  a  loud  voice,  which  Felix  could  hear  even  at 
this  distance,  was  a  big  broad-shouldered  man  of  erect  car 
riage  and  florid  face,  with  bristling  moustache.  It  was  only 
at  second  glance  that  he  seemed  rather  stout.  He  raised 
his  hand  and  shook  his  finger  in  the  face  of  his  companion, 
the  little  man,  who  nodded  respectfully. 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Felix  to  Daisy.  "  There's  a  man  over 
here  I  want  to  speak  to." 

He  followed  the  big  man  and  his  little  companion,  and 
soon  overtook  them. 

"  You're  a  Socialist,  aren't  you  ?  "  he  demanded,  blocking 
the  big  man's  path. 

"  Well,  what  of  it?"  asked  the  other  genially. 

"I  —  I  want  to  join,"  said  Felix. 

The  big  man  laughed.  "  Well,  here's  the  secretary  of 
the  local,"  he  said,  indicating  his  companion. 

"  My  name,"  said  the  little  man,  '*  is  Rapp.  This  is  Com 
rade  Vogelsang." 

Felix  told  them  his  name,  and  they  shook  hands  with 
him,  addressing  him  as  Comrade.  *'  Are  you  transferring 
from  some  other  local,  or  are  you  a  new  recruit  ?  "  asked 
Comrade  Rapp. 

"  I  am  joining  for  the  first  time,"  said  Felix. 

"  Then  you'll  have  to  sign  an  application,"  said  Comrade 
Rapp,  and  took  out  a  card,  on  which  Felix  wrote  his  name. 
Both  his  new  friends  signed  theirs  underneath,  recommend 
ing  him  to  membership.  "  This  will  be  acted  upon  at  the 
meeting  next  Friday,"  said  Comrade  Rapp.  "  You  can 
come  then,  and  pay  your  dues," —  for  Felix  was  reaching 
into  his  pocket. 


2o8  Moon-Calf 

But  the  remains  of  the  fat  philosopher's  five  dollar  bill 
demanded  to  be  spent  at  once.  "  I'll  tell  you,"  said  Felix, 
"  let  me  pay  a  year  in  advance !  I  have  the  money  now, 
and  I  may  not  have  it  again."  It  was  as  though  he  had  a 
grudge  against  the  money  and  had  to  get  rid  of  it. 

Comrade  Vogelsang  looked  at  him  with  a  sudden  cur 
iosity.  "Do  I  not  see  you  before?"  he  cried.  "Yes!" — 
Then  he  checked  himself,  and  laughed.  "  My  friend  here, 
he  cannot  think  and  look  at  the  same  time.  But  I  can !  " 
He  laughed  again.  "  Comrade  Rapp,"  he  said,  "  will  think 
I  am  no  friend  of  the  co-operative  commonwealth;  but  I 
say,  do  not  rob  yourself  tonight.  Keep  your  money."  But 
Felix  shook  his  head  and  again  offered  the  bills  to  the 
secretary.  "  No  ?  What  is  it,  then  ? "  asked  Comrade 
Vogelsang.  "  Something  too  deep  for  me,  evidently ! 
Well,"  he  turned  to  his  companion,  u  take  his  money.  It 
will  do  him  no  good  at  the  present.  He  too  thinks  that 
Socialism  is  composed  of  municipal  street  car  wheels.  No? 
Or  some  other  foolishness  which  I  shall  have  to  knock  out 
of  his  head.  Take  his  money." 

So  Felix  paid  over  three  dollars,  and  received  twelve  little 
dues-stamps.  <4  Here,"  said  Comrade  Rapp,  "  is  a  card 
which  tells  where  and  when  we  meet.  If  you  should  lose 
it,  go  to  Turner  Hall  next  Friday  —  the  last  hall  on  the  top 
floor." 

"  You  will  come  with  us  and  drink  some  beer  ?  "  asked 
Comrade  Vogelsang.  "  No  ?  Well,  then,  I  shall  have  an 
account  of  you  next  Friday.  See  well  how  you  behave  in 
the  meantime !  "  He  laughed  his  hearty  laugh,  and  Felix 
went  slowly  back  to  find  the  girl  he  had  left.  So  Comrade 
Vogelsang  had  seen  him  with  her !  .  .  .  He  hurried  on,  with 
a  sudden  fear  that  she  would  be  gone. 

He  found  her  with  Ben  and  Tillie.  The  rest  had  gone  off 
to  dance.  *'  I'm  so  glad  you've  come,"  she  cried.  "  Ben 
here  makes  me  tired  with  his  silly  jokes.  Shall  we  dance?  " 


Utopia  209 


Yes,  she  was  very  beautiful.  And  her  voice  —  why  had 
he  imagined  a  while  ago  that  it  was  unpleasant?  It  had  a 
silvery  sweetness.  He  took  her  arm,  and  pressed  it  as  they 
went  to  the  pavilion.  It  was  an  awed  and  shy  caress,  and 
he  was  full  of  a  sense  of  undeserved  privilege  in  having  her 
company.  But  when  he  did  it  the  second  time,  she  drew 
herself  away  and  gave  him  a  reproving  glance.  He  felt  that 
he  had  been  overbold,  and  flushed  with  shame.  He  com 
menced  to  wonder  if  he  would  be  able  to  dance  this  time. 
"What  is  this?"  he  asked,  hesitating  at  the  edge  of  the 
open  space. 

"  Just  a  two-step,"  she  said,  and  held  out  her  arms. 
"  Come  on." 

But  he  could  not  get  the  rhythm.  He  made  two  at 
tempts,  and  stopped  to  begin  again.  She  was  impatient. 
The  third  time  he  persisted,  and  stumbled  over  her  feet. 
*'  I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  over  and  over.  He  was  utterly  un 
happy.  He  couldn't  dance,  that  was  all  there  was  to  it. 
How  he  had  managed  it  before  he  didn't  know. 

She  turned  to  him,  annoyed.  '*  I  just  don't  believe  you 
want  to !  "  she  said. 

"  I  want  to  too  much,  that's  the  trouble,"  he  muttered. 

"  Well,"  she  relented,  with  a  smile,  '*  come,  let's  try  it 
again.  You  did  so  beautifully  the  last  time." 

"  No,  please !  "  he  protested.  "  I'm  afraid  I  can't."  So 
they  sat  down  at  a  table;  but  he  was  too  covered  with 
humiliation  to  talk.  It  was  a  relief  when  Ben  and  the 
others  joined  them  again.  Felix  bought  drinks  for  every 
body,  and  had  a  dismal  conviction  that  it  would  take  more 
money  than  he  had  left.  He  was  wrong,  but  he  suffered 
in  foretaste  all  the  shame  of  that  event ;  and  he  realized 
afterward  that  in  his  embarrassment  he  had  neglected  to 
tip  the  waiter.  He  wondered  if  everybody  had  noticed,  and 
concluded  that  they  had. 

"  I  must  go  home,"  said  Daisy  at  last.     He  rose  hesitat- 


2io  Moon-Calf 

ingly,  to  accompany  her.  "  Don't  come  if  you  don't  want 
to,"  she  flashed.  He  was  angry  with  her  for  that.  The 
ferry  ride  was  not  cheerful. 

"  What  is  Socialism  ? "  she  asked  challengingly  on  the 
street  car. 

"A  lot  of  things,"  he  replied  sulkily. 

"Meaning  that  it's  not  worth  while  to  tell  me?" 

"  I  mean  —  I  don't  know  exactly.  You  heard  what  that 
man  said  — '  beauty  and  happiness.' J) 

"Yes  —  a  long  time  after  I'm  dead.  I  thought  it  was 
something  like  that." 

Somewhere  in  the  back  of  his  mind  Felix  thought : 
"  She  is  right.  She  wants  her  happiness  now.  Why  don't 
I?  It's  so  easy  to  fall  in  love.  I'm  more  than  half  in  love 
with  her  now.  And  she  with  me.  That's  why  we're  quar 
reling.  We  want  each  other.  Well,  why  don't  we  take 
each  other?  That  is  what  is  called  happiness.  .  .  .  She's 
terribly  sweet.  And  she  has  pride.  If  only  her  name 
weren't  Daisy !  " 

Daisy  lived  in  Stevenson  —  far  out.  *'  I  do  like  her," 
Felix  kept  saying  to  himself.  "  And  she  likes  me." 

They  left  the  street  car  and  walked.  When  they  reached 
the  house,  she  hesitated,  and  then  said :  "  I  go  in  the  back 
way.  This  isn't  my  home,  you  know.  I  work  here." 
There  was  something  between  defiance  and  appeal  in  her 
voice. 

"  I  work  in  a  factory,"  he  heard  himself  saying. 

At  the  door,  after  she  had  found  her  key,  she  held  out  her 
hand.  He  took  it  in  both  of  his. 

"  Am  I  going  to  see  you  again  ?  "  she  asked.  There  was 
a  hard  note  in  her  voice. 

Felix  pondered.     "  I  haven't  a  telephone,"  he  said. 

"  Do  you  want  my  number  ?  " 

"Yes."     He  wrote  it  down. 

"  I'm  free  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  evening,"  she 
said,  "  and  every  other  Saturday  afternoon."  He  put  that 
down,  too.  Was  he,  he  asked  himself  in  curious  surprise, 


Utopia  211 

a  snob  ?  —  he,  a  factory  hand  himself  ?  —  he,  who  had  been 
in  love  with  a  girl  who  worked  in  a  factory?  It  was  pre 
posterous,  but  as  he  wrote  down  her  "  free  evenings  "  he 
realized  that  he  would  never  see  her  again. 

"  Good-bye,"  she  said  softly. 

He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her  upturned  lips. 
They  were  sweet  and  chill. 

"  Good-bye !  "  he  said,  and  went  away. 

On  the  street  car  he  found  that  he  had  only  four  cents 
left.  He  got  off  and  walked  home.  "  Wheels  was  wrong," 
he  said  to  himself  amusedly.  '*  One  cant  get  everything 
the  Island  has  to  offer  and  still  have  carfare  home ! " 


XXV  Central  Branch 


THE  final  flight  of  stairs  leading  to  the  little  meet 
ing  place  up  under  the  eaves  of  Turner  Hall  had 
a  dusty  banister,  as  though  the  existence  of  the 
place  had  been  forgotten  even  by  the  janitor;  but  to  Felix 
the  dust  that  came  off  on  his  fingers  as  he  breathlessly 
climbed,  brought  back  a  memory  of  the  attic  at  Maple  where 
he  had  found  Percy's  Reliques  and  the  Book  of  Mormon; 
and  with  that  flash  of  memory  came  the  sense  that  in 
leaving  the  last  stair-landing  he  had  left  behind  the  actuali 
ties  of  Turner  Hall  and  of  Port  Royal,  and  reached  a  place 
out  of  the  world. 

The  door  of  the  room  was  open  to  let  through  the  breeze 
that  came  faintly  in  at  the  open  windows ;  and  Felix,  pausing 
for  breath,  looked  in  at  a  little  room  around  the  edges  of 
which,  in  a  straggling  row  of  chairs,  some  of  them  tilted 
against  the  wall,  sat  a  dozen  men  in  their  shirt-sleeves.  A 
confused  murmur  of  quiet  talk  drifted  into  the  hallway, 
with  the  smell  of  pipes  and  cigar-smoke. 

Felix  stood  still,  under  the  spell  of  a  curious  illusion.  It 
was  as  if  he  knew  this  place  —  had  always  known  it  —  as 
though  he  had  frequented  it  in  some  previous  existence,  or 
in  dreams.  He  knew  that  he  belonged  there;  and  he 
breathed  in  the  odour  of  tobacco  smoke  and  drank  up  the 
murmur  of  voices  from  within  with  a  kind  of  nostalgia. 
After  a  long  exile  in  an  alien  environment,  he  was  coming 
home. 

He  entered,  and  took  a  seat  a  little  apart  from  the  others. 
Rapp,  the  man  to  whom  he  had  paid  his  dues  the  other  day 
on  the  Island,  was  seated  at  a  long  table  in  the  middle  of 

212 


Central  Branch  213 

the  room,  earnestly  discussing  something  in  low  tones  with 
another  man.  Some  of  the  others  turned  and  looked  at 
Felix,  and  he  smiled  back  confidently.  Rapp  beckoned  a 
third  man  to  him,  and  the  three  were  still  talking  when 
some  one  entered  quietly,  and  the  conversation  stopped,  as 
if  the  meeting  were  about  to  begin.  And  the  meeting  did  in 
fact  begin,  after  some  perfunctory  formalities,  with  the 
reading  of  the  minutes. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  these  that  Comrade  Vogelsang  en 
tered.  His  glance  swept  the  room,  looking  for  Felix,  found 
him  and  dwelt  on  him  for  a  moment  in  mingled  surprise  and 
approval,  and  then  passed  on  to  the  vacant  chair  a  little 
beyond,  whither  Comrade  Vogelsang  marched  and  sat  him 
self  down.  The  drone  of  the  minutes  continued. 

*'  The  next  order  of  business,"  said  the  soft  voice  of  the 
mild  chairman,  "  is  the  reading  of  correspondence." 

Comrade  Rapp  rose  again,  shuffling  a  sheaf  of  letters. 
"  From  the  National  Executive  Committee,"  he  began. 

Comrade  Vogelsang  had  taken  out  a  cigar  and  lighted  it. 
He  was  looking  at  Felix,  with  a  quizzical  stare,  up  and  down 
and  through.  Felix  was  not  disconcerted.  He  was  too 
immersed  in  the  sense  of  exhilaration  which  the  meeting  of 
itself  gave  to  him.  Somehow  he  felt,  as  he  had  never  felt 
before  in  any  group,  that  these  were  his  own  kind  of  peo 
ple,  that  he  understood  them,  that  he  was  on  an  equality 
with  them.  The  letters  Comrade  Rapp  was  reading,  mean 
ingless  in  detail,  had  a  sharp  significance  as  tokens  of  the 
relation  of  this  group  to  other  groups  of  the  same  kind, 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  a  vast  body  of  people  among  whom 
he  felt  that  he  belonged.  He  was  happy. 

'*  Admission  of  new  members."  The  secretary  rose,  and 
read  off  the  names  on  four  cards,  rapidly,  and  added,  "  I 
move  that  these  applicants  be  admitted  to  membership." 
Somebody  murmured  a  second  to  the  motion,  and  it  was  put 
to  a  hasty,  perfunctory  vote.  But  Felix  thrilled  with  pleas 
ure.  He  was  a  member  of  Local  Port  Royal  of  the  Social 
ist  Party! 


214  Moon-Calf 

"  Unfinished    business.     Is    there    any    unfinished    busi 
ness  ?  "     It  seemed  that  there  was  none.     "  New  business." 


The  Socialist  "local"  in  Port  Royal  — or  rather,  the 
Central  branch  of  the  local,  comprising  all  the  English- 
speaking  membership  of  the  party  —  was  at  that  time  in  the 
quietest  stage  in  its  career.  There  had  always  been  So 
cialists  in  Port  Royal  —  not  few  enough  to  make  them  od 
dities,  and  not  so  many  as  to  have  any  effect  upon  the  prac 
tical  politics  of  the  town.  Some  of  them  had  passed  through 
the  schism  which  had  given  birth  to  their  parent  organiza 
tion  ;  but  the  thunderings  of  DeLeon  were  now  forgotten  — 
and  the  controversies  over  the  I.  W.  W.  and  "  direct  ac 
tion  "  were  still  of  the  future.  Central  branch  of  Local 
Port  Royal  lay  in  the  trough  of  the  wave  of  events ;  putting 
up  candidates  for  elections,  holding  street  meetings  in  earn 
est  competition  with  the  Salvation  Army  and  the  sellers  of 
patent  medicines,  collecting  dues,  and  holding  its  regular 
meetings  in  Turner  Hall  twice  a  month.  The  membership 
changed  with  the  steady,  eternal  migrations  of  labour;  old 
members  lost  interest  and  only  came  around  every  few 
months  to  pay  up  their  back  dues.  The  meetings  in  Turner 
Hall  were  occupied  with  official  proceedings,  long  drawn  out 
and  unexciting,  and  the  conduct  of  affairs  was  left  to  a 
faithful  handful  who  could  be  persuaded  to  give  their  time 
to  it.  The  branch  was  like  a  small,  unpopular,  semi-re 
spectable  heretical  church  which  continued  to  exist  because  it 
is  in  the  nature  of  institutions,  once  started,  to  keep  on 
existing. 

But  there  were  members  who  were  impatient  of  the  mo 
notony  of  these  proceedings,  and  who  now  and  then  made 
brief,  ineffectual  attempts  to  enliven  them;  ineffectual,  be 
cause  they  were  somehow  quickly  and  softly  smothered  by 
the  mild  but  efficient  chairman.  One  of  these  was  Comrade 
Vogelsang,  who  now  abruptly  rose  to  speak.  The  subject 
under  discussion  was  a  program  committee,  from  which  the 


Central  Branch  215 

last  remaining  member  had  just  resigned;  one  of  the  other 
members  having  been  suspended  for  non-payment  of  dues, 
while  the  third  had  left  town.  Some  one  had  remarked, 
"  The  program  committee  never  does  any  work  anyway,  it 
might  as  well  be  abolished !  " 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Comrade  Vogelsang  took  the  floor. 
"  Comrade  Chairman,"  he  said,  '*  I  move  that  Comrade  Fay 
be  elected  to  the  program  committee."  And  before  Felix 
quite  realized  what  was  happening,  the  vote  had  carried. 
But  Comrade  Vogelsang  still  held  the  floor. 

"  I  move  further,  Comrade  Chairman,  that  Comrade  Ross 
be  elected  to  the  committee."  There  was  a  little  surprise 
at  this  motion,  but  it  also  was  carried  unanimously.  Com 
rade  Vogelsang  still  remained  standing. 

"  I  consider  the  program  committee,"  he  said,  "  one  of  the 
most  important  parts  of  our  organization.  I  think  we  have 
made  the  best  possible  choice  of  its  first  two  members;  it 
remains  only  for  us  to  be  equally  judicious  in  selecting  the 
third."  He  paused  and  smiled.  *'  Modesty  forbids  — " 

Felix  had  already  some  glimmering  of  what  his  friend 
was  going  to  say,  and  so  at  this  moment  he  rose.  "  I  move 
that  Comrade  Vogelsang  be  elected  as  the  third  member  of 
the  committee,"  he  said. 

There  was  a  ripple  of  amusement,  interrupted  by  the  soft 
voice  of  the  chairman.  "  Is  there  a  second  ?  All  those  in 
favour — "  And  the  incident  was  finished  off  in  the  usual 
manner. 

'*  Any  further  business  before  this  meeting  —  ?  " 

"  A  motion  to  adjourn  will  — " 

The  members  commenced  to  rise,  but  the  chairman  went 
through  the  formality  of  a  vote.  ...  A  small  stocky  man, 
apparently  a  Jew,  was  approaching  Felix,  with  one  hand 
patting  smooth  over  his  forehead  the  shiny  locks  of  a  black 
wig,  and  the  other  fumbling  at  a  watch-charm  on  his  stom 
ach,  grinning  ferociously  the  while.  "  You  are  the  new 
member  ?  Fay  is  your  name  ?  "  he  asked.  *'  My  name  is 
Feinbaum.  Here  is  my  card.  I  have  a  little  tailor  shop 


216  Moon-Calf 

not  far  from  here.  Come  and  see  me.  I  would  like  to 
talk  with  you." 

Another  man  came  up.  "  Comrade  Fay,  how  do  you  do  ? 
My  name  is  Peck.  Here  is  a  little  pamphlet  that  may  in 
terest  you."  Felix  stuffed  it  in  his  pocket. 

Comrade  Vogelsang  took  him  by  the  shoulder.  "  Come 
with  me,"  he  said. 


They  walked  off  together.  "  Did  Peck  give  you  one  of 
his  pamphlets  ?  "  Comrade  Vogelsang  asked,  and  laughed. 
"  Peck  is  a  spookist.  A  spiritualist.  He  will  want  you  to 
go  to  seances  with  him.  Pay  him  no  attention." 

They  hurried  down  the  stairs  through  the  stream  of  men 
descending  from  a  score  of  lodge-halls  and  union  meetings. 
"  But  Feinbaum  you  should  go  and  see.  He  is  an  amusing 
cuss.  He  has  things  in  his  head  which  he  calls  ideas.  It 
is  worth  while  to  listen  to  them  rattle."  Again  he  took 
Felix  by  the  arm  and  steered  him  across  the  street,  into  the 
back  room  of  a  saloon.  When  they  were  seated  at  a  table 
he  said,  "  It  makes  me  hungry  to  listen  to  so  much  foolish 
ness.  I  must  eat.  And  you  also.  Yes  ?  —  Waiter !  Some 
black  bread  and  Swiss  cheese  and  a  little  Bologna  sausage. 
And  two  seidels  of  dark  beer.  .  .  ."  He  lighted  another 
cigar. 

"  And  now  yourself.  Yes,  we  will  talk  about  you.  Gen 
erally  I  talk  about  myself.  It  is  the  most  interesting  sub 
ject  I  know.  But  first  you.  Your  history.  No,  I  do  not 
mean  that  you  should  tell  me.  /  will  tell  you!  That  is 
better,  eh?  You  will  learn  about  yourself.  I  will  tell  you 
who  you  are,  and  what  you  want  to  do.  How  could  you 
tell  me  that?  You  do  not  know  it!  But  I  know  it,  and  I 
will  tell  you.  All  about  it.  ...  But  first  we  will  eat.  Ah, 
here  is  our  waiter.  Yes,  it  makes  one  hungry,  and  thirsty, 
too,  to  listen  to  foolishness.  Prosit !  " 


XXVI  Revelation 

FELIX  felt  a  strange  confidence  in  this  smiling  red- 
faced  man  with  dictatorial  manners  who  sat  op 
posite  him,  and  he  waited,  with  an  emotion  he  had 
never  felt  before,  for  him  to  speak.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
been  lost  for  a  long  time,  not  daring  to  ask  anybody  the 
right  road,  and  now  had  found  a  true  guide.  But  he  was 
startled  when  Comrade  Vogelsang  looked  up,  wiped  his 
mouth,  and  said,  "You  write  poetry?" 

"  Yes  —  but  how  did  you  know  ?  "  demanded  Felix. 

"  I  know.  All  young  men  of  your  type  do.  You  doubt 
less  regard  yourself  as  an  isolated  phenomenon  —  a  unique 
person.  It  is  not  so.  The  same  conditions  produce  the 
same  results  in  persons  of  your  temperament." 

"  Poets  are  made,  then,  not  born  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  say  you  were  a  poet.  I  only  said  that  you 
wrote  poetry.  No  —  I  do  not  think  you  are  a  poet.  But  I 
can  soon  tell.  You  have  some  of  your  poems  with  you  — 
all  young  men  who  write  poetry  carry  it  around  with  them. 
Come,  out  with  it !  " 

Laughing,  Felix  produced  a  bundle  of  folded  papers  from 
his  pocket. 

"  I  will  see."  And  Comrade  Vogelsang  took  the  bundle. 
He  opened  the  first  sheet  and  read  it  through.  Then  he 
looked  up  at  Felix  quizzically,  and  read  the  beginning: 

"  The  dust  whereof  my  body  came 
Was  ashes  of  an  ancient  name, 
And  rearisen  ghosts  of  fire 
In  me  cry  out  with  vain  desire." 

"Well?"  asked  Felix. 

"  One  wouldn't  think  it  to  look  at  you,"  said  Comrade 

217 


218  Moon-Calf 

Vogelsang,  smiling.  "  I  see  nothing  the  matter  with  you. 
You  seem  to  me  capable  of  being  quite  a  fire  yourself,  in 
stead  of  a  mere  habitation  for  complaining  ghosts.  Why 
should  they  cry  out  with  vain  desire?  Is  your  opportunity 
for  life  more  meagre  than  that  of  your  ancestors  ?  Or  is  it 
that  you  think  that  nothing  is  worth  while  doing?  ...  I 
continue."  And  he  read  the  next  stanza : 

"Among  these  men  of  colder  clay 
I  wake  by  night  or  walk  by  day, 
And  lift  or  lay  my  weary  head 
Unfriended  and  uncomforted." 

"Well?"  asked  Felix  again. 

"  Old  maids'  poetry,"  said  Comrade  Vogelsang,  making  a 
wry  face.  "  Not  real  poetry.  To  be  a  poet  you  must  be 
able  to  speak  for  yourself.  This  isn't  you.  This  is  some 
sick  person." 

"Then,"  said  Felix,  "you  think  I  am  not  a  real  poet?" 

"  Let  me  see  some  more."  He  read  three  of  the  folded 
papers  without  comment.  When  he  had  finished  he  looked 
up  smiling,  and  said,  "  No  —  I  don't  think  you  are  a  poet. 
And  what  is  more,  I  think  you  are  getting  tired  of  pretend 
ing  to  be  one." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Felix. 

"  That  is  why,"  pursued  Comrade  Vogelsang,  "  you  have 
cbme  to  me  —  to  be  told  the  truth.  You  have  been  mooning 
about,  writing  verses  about  life,  instead  of  living.  You  have 
been  afraid  to  live.  Most  people  are.  Something  stands 
between  them  and  life.  Not  only  economic  conditions: 
something  else  —  a  shadow,  a  fear.  Perhaps  it  is  safer  not 
to  try,  they  think.  So  do  you.  These  poems  are  your  con 
solations  for  not  living.  That  is  why  I  called  you  an  old 
maids'  poet.  If  this  young  man  is  content  with  nothing, 
why  shouldn't  I  be?  That  is  what  they  think  when  they 
read  your  poems.  That  is  why  they  like  your  poems.  You 
have  a  future  —  a  great  future  —  as  a  consoler  of  weak 
souls.  If  you  just  go  ahead,  you  will  become  famous.  But 


Revelation  219 

I  don't  think  you  will.     I  don't  think  you  want  to  be  a — " 
*' '  A  pet  lamb  is   a   sentimental   farce,' "   quoted  Felix. 
"  No,  by  God,  I  believe  you're  right !     Go  on !  " 

"  These,"  said  Comrade  Vogelsang,  laying  a  detaining 
hand  on  the  pile  of  papers  which  Felix  was  about  to  restore 
to  his  pocket,  *'  I  am  not  yet  through  with.  If  they  are 
not  real  poems,  they  are  records  of  your  fears  —  of  what 
stands  between  you  and  life.  You  will  not  be  ready  to  live 
until  you  have  learned  much  —  and  unlearned  much  more. 
You  must  have  a  new  philosophy,  new  morals,  a  new  mind 
with  which  to  face  the  world.  We  will  speak  of  these  poems 
again.  But  first  I  must  tell  you  some  more  about  yourself. 
—  Waiter !  Two  more  seidels  of  beer  1 " 


XXVII  Adopted 


T 


be  told  about  oneself  for  the  first  time  is  a  father 
staggering  experience,  and  Felix  went  home  from 
his  session  with  Comrade  Vogelsang  dazed  as  well 
as  illuminated. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Felix  had  come  into  contact 
with  the  representative  of  a  culture  alien  to  that  of  his  own 
land.  This  man  was  scornful  of  what  he  called  "  bour 
geois  "  culture.  When  Felix  realized  that  he  was  being 
accused  of  sharing  this  bourgeois  stuff-and-nonsense,  he  had 
at  first  indignantly  denied  the  fact.  But  Comrade  Vogel 
sang  had  laughed  at  him.  "  I  know,"  he  said.  "  You  have 
revolted  against  the  gross  facts  of  American  economic  life. 
You  do  not  like  them.  And  you  have  proceeded  to  blind 
your  eyes  with  ideals.  You  think  you  have  done  something 
original.  But  you  have  only  taken  great  pains  to  do  for 
yourself  what  the  American  bourgeoisie  stands  ready  and 
eager  to  do  for  you.  The  American  bourgeoisie  pays  mil 
lions  of  dollars  a  year  to  support  colleges  to  teach  young 
people  like  you  to  believe  in  ideals  —  and  to  stop  looking 
at  economic  facts.  You  tell  me  that  you  will  have  to  keep 
on  working  —  that  you  cannot  afford  to  go  back  to  school. 
You  are  wrong.  Do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  the  Amer 
ican  bourgeoisie  wants  you  to  work  in  its  factories.  No  — 
you  might  get  tired  of  your  ideals,  and  see  what  is  going 
on  in  those  factories.  You  think  that  the  master-class  is  in 
different  to  your  fate,  that  it  will  let  you  slave  your  life 
away  among  machines.  No  —  it  is  too  kind  —  that  is  to 
say,  too  wise  —  to  let  you  do  that.  Once  let  it  hear  of  your 
predicament,  and  it  will  come  to  your  rescue  —  if  you  let  it. 

220 


Adopted  221 

You  do  not  believe  that?  Then  let  me  tell  you  I  know  a 
man  in  this  city  to  whom  I  could  go  —  I  myself  —  and  tell 
him  about  you,  and  he  would  pay  your  way  through  one  of 
the  great  colleges.  You  want  to  be  a  poet  ?  Very  well ; 
lift  your  hand,  and  it  is  done.  Say  the  word,  and  you  shall 
spend  the  rest  of  your  life  writing  pretty  verses  about  your 
self,  like  those  you  have  shown  me.  No,  you  do  not  know 
the  world  you  live  in." 

After  nothing  but  praise,  and  the  most  judiciously  tem 
pered  criticism,  this  reiterated  damnation  of  his  '*  pretty 
verses  "  was  curiously  agreeable  to  Felix.  He  wished  to 
hear  more  of  it,  so  he  defended  his  poems  as  best  he  could. 
Had  he  not  told  the  truth  in  them  ? 

"  Yes,  but  what  truth  ?  There  are  truths  and  truths ! 
New  truths  and  old!  What  have  you  said  that  has  not 
been  said  by  dozens  of  poets  before  you,  and  much  better? 
I  do  not  blame  you.  You  are  the  victim  of  what  you  have 
read.  I  do  not  say  you  copy  what  others  have  written. 
I  only  say  that  you  have  discovered  in  yourself  only  what 
other  poets  have  revealed  to  you  in  yourself.  .  .  .  Have 
you  ever  read  Dostoievsky?  No,  I  thought  not.  When 
you  do,  you  will  see  that  you  have  only  scratched  the  sur 
face  of  your  soul  with  your  pen-point.  You  will  realize  that 
you  have  caverns  and  abysses  in  yourself.  You  will  ex 
plore  them  —  when  you  have  been  taught  that  they  are 
there.  Have  you  ever  read  Ibsen?  .  .  .  My  God,  and 
this  is  American  culture !  Do  not  think  I  blame  you.  But 
you  have  spent  the  first  part  of  your  life  accumulating  a 
skull-full  of  trash,  the  debris  of  stale  culture,  and  you  must 
hurry  up  and  unlearn  it.  You  have  no  time  to  lose,  if 
you  expect  to  say  anything  that  is  worth  listening  to.  It 
is  lucky  for  you  that  I  have  come  across  you.  .  .  ." 

So  Felix  thought.  Awed  and  bewildered,  he  exposed 
his  ideas,  his  emotions,  to  the  dissection  of,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  a  surgeon  of  the  mind.  "  Do  you  think  I  shall 
amount  to  anything?"  he  asked. 

The  other  considered.     "Yes,"  he  said,  "or  I  shall  be 


222  Moon-Calf 

much  ashamed  of  myself.  You  think  I  am  egotistic? 
Well,  you  are  right.  But  I  have  good  material  to  work 
upon  in  you.  Underneath  all  the  softness  of  your  mind 
there  is  something  hard." 

Felix  returned  to  the  question  of  the  proper  destiny  of 
a  poet.  Was  it  not  his  fate  to  suffer  pain  .  .  .  ? 

"  Again  I  tell  you,  your  head  is  full  of  romantic  non 
sense.  Stop  thinking  of  the  middle  ages.  You  are  living 
now.  You  have  a  relation  to  your  own  time,  which  does 
not  consist  in  lying  down  for  it  to  walk  over  you." 

"  But  what  am  I  to  do  ?  " 

"  Open  your  eyes.  I  cannot  tell  you  all  at  once.  There 
are  many  things  you  can  do  when  you  come  to  a  realization 
of  yourself.  Do  not  ask  me  questions  as  if  I  were  a  fortune 
teller.  But  I  will  tell  you  this.  If  before  many  months 
you  have  not  found  out  what  to  do  for  yourself  I  will 
think  myself  no  teacher.  Listen  once  more.  I  have  been 
trying  to  get  it  into  your  head  that  you  are  a  member  of 
what  is  called  in  Europe  the  intellectual  proletariat.  If  I 
can  get  you  to  understand  what  that  means,  you  can  work 
out  the  implications  of  it  for  yourself.  Perhaps  I  am 
mistaken.  Perhaps  you  are  just  a  romantic  proletarian, 
and  will  go  on  working  in  a  factory  and  writing  bad  verses ; 
perhaps  you  are  not  a  real  proletarian  at  all,  but  the  off 
spring  of  a  broken-down  middle-class  family,  in  which 
case  you  will  go  back  where  you  belong.  That  is  more 
likely.  But  I  have  hopes  of  you." 

"Do  you  mean  that  I  should  work  for  Socialism?" 

*'  More  romantic  nonsense !  No,  no  self-sacrifice,  no 
martyrdom.  Socialism  does  not  need  your  help.  On  the 
contrary,  it  will  help  you.  I  see  you  do  not  understand 
me.  We  are  going  too  fast.  But  you  will.  Be  patient. 
Finish  your  beer." 

No,  Felix  did  not  understand.  But  he  read  the  only 
novel  of  Dostoievsky's  he  could  find,  and  all  the  plays  of 
Ibsen,  in  the  next  fortnight.  He  read  also  some  plays  by 
a  man  he  had  never  heard  of,  Bernard  Shaw;  and  these 


Adopted  223 

seemed  to  make  Comrade  Vogelsang  more  intelligible. 
They  were  like  him,  in  a  way.  They  both  upset  his  accus 
tomed  ideals,  and  left  him  uncertain  what  to  put  in  their 
place.  And  they  both  made  him  wonder  if  they  always 
really  meant  what  they  said;  because  if  what  they  said 
were  so,  then  .  .  .  ? 

It  gave  him  a  little  shock,  on  Saturday  afternoon,  to  see 
this  wise  man  going  placidly  along  the  street  in  a  mail- 
carrier's  uniform.  He  had  vaguely  heard  that  Comrade 
Vogelsang  worked  in  the  postoffice;  but  his  uniform,  his 
mail-bag,  seemed  queer.  He  saluted  Felix  casually  and 
walked  on,  sorting  a  handful  of  letters.  He  seemed  to  be 
another  person. 

2 

Felix  read  the  pamphlet  Comrade  Peck  had  given  him ; 
and  he  would  have  been  bewildered  by  its  credulous  silli 
ness  —  it  was  about  table-turning  and  "  spirit-photography  " 
—  if  he  had  not  remembered  what  Comrade  Vogelsang  had 
said :  "  Any  movement  which  promises  to  change  condi 
tions  will  always  attract,  first  of  all,  the  freaks,  the  cranks, 
the  unbalanced  persons  —  all  those  whose  psychic  weak 
nesses  make  it  hard  for  them  to  get  along  in  the  world  as  it  is. 
We  used  to  have  more  of  them  in  our  branch  —  before  I  be 
gan  making  speeches  at  them."  He  laughed.  "  Yes,  I  drove 
away  some  of  our  craziest  members.  But  we  have  a  few 
of  them  left."  This  candour  startled  Felix,  who  would  in 
stinctively  have  preferred  to  idealize  the  membership  of 
the  party ;  it  seemed  to  him  almost  like  disloyalty.  "  Come," 
his  mentor  had  said,  "  don't  be  shocked.  It  is  not  your 
business  to  imagine  pretty  things  that  are  not  true;  it  is 
your  business  to  see  things  as  they  are.  And  you  will  have 
fine  opportunities  for  the  study  of  human  nature  in  our 
meetings." 

In  this  mood,  somewhat  upon  his  guard,  he  went  to  see 
Feinbaum.  The  little  tailor  welcomed  him  eagerly,  grinning 
his  ferocious  smile,  and  led  him  into  the  back  room,  where 


224  Moon-Calf 

some  girls  were  sewing  garments.  "  You  see  my  shop !  " 
he  said.  "  Perhaps  you  are  surprised  that  I  do  not  have 
men  working  for  me.  It  is  because  I  can  get  these  girls 
to  work  for  less.  Is  it  not  so,  Becky  ?  " 

The  little  dark  girl  who  was  addressed  looked  up. 
"  Dead  right !  "  she  said,  and  bent  again  over  her  work. 

"  It  is  the  capitalist  system,"  said  Feinbaum,  patting 
smooth*  his  shiny  black  wig.  u  Under  capitalism,  do  as  the 
capitalists  do.  If  I  did  not  have  these  girls  working  for 
me,  I  would  be  working  myself  for  some  other  man.  As 
it  is,  I  have  time  for  intellectual  conversation  with  people 
like  you.  Sit  down !  "  He  cleared  off  a  chair. 

"  What  shall  we  discuss  ?  Morality  ?  I  like  to  discuss 
morality.  It  shocks  my  young  ladies  here,  but  they  pretend 
not  to  mind.  A  wage-slave  cannot  afford  to  have  fine  feel 
ings.  They  think  I  am  a  terribly  immoral  person.  And 
so  I  am !  "  He  grinned. 

Decidedly,  Feinbaum  was  amusing.  .  .  . 

On  Sunday  evening  a  meeting  of  the  program  committee 
was  held  in  the  little  flat  inhabited  by  Comrade  Vogelsang. 
There  was  a  Mrs.  Vogelsang,  a  kindly  but  realistic  woman 
whose  attitude  toward  her  husband  helped  to  temper  Felix's 
growing  admiration  for  the  wisdom  of  his  new  friend. 
"  Franz,"  she  would  say  sharply,  at  the  top  of  his  most 
eloquent  flight  of  discourse,  "  you  are  talking  nonsense  your 
self  ! "  And  he  would  look  bewildered,  and  collapse  like 
a  pricked  balloon,  and  then  laugh  at  himself.  *'  No  doubt  I 
was,"  he  would  admit.  "  But  it  is  a  new  kind  of  nonsense 
to  Felix  here  and  much  superior  to  the  kinds  of  nonsense 
to  which  he  is  accustomed." 

When  Felix  arrived,  there  was  a  good-looking  school 
girl  of  eighteen  there,  a  buoyant  young  person  with  red 
cheeks  and  a  steady  blue  gaze.  She  was  introduced  as 
"Miss  Ross  —  Comrade  Ross" — and  Felix  realized  that 
she  was  the  other  member  of  the  committee. 

"  Our  business,"  she  said  briskly,  **  is  to  put  some  life 
into  those  meetings.  They  are  dead.  And  the  first  thing 


Adopted  225 

to  do  to  liven  them  up  is  to  get  the  women  to  come.  And 
the  way.  to  do  that  is  to  prohibit  smoking,  and  to  serve 
some  ice  cream  and  coffee,  or  something.  You,  Franz,  will 
have  to  go  without  your  cigar  for  three  hours  !  " 

"  I  consent,"  said  Franz. 

"  And  yet,"  said  his  wife,  "  he  says  he  does  not  believe 
in  self-sacrifice." 

44  I  consent  on  one  condition,"  said  Franz.  "  A  fair  trade 
is  no  sacrifice.  My  condition  is  that  you  let  me,  and  Fein- 
baum,  and  all  the  other  crazy  ones,  get  up  and  say  all  the 
shocking  things  we  want  to.  That  is  the  other  thing  that 
is  necessary  to  liven  things  up." 

"  If  we  can  just  pry  pussyfoot  Simpson  loose  from  the 
chairmanship  — "  said  Emily. 

44  I  know  how  to  do  that,"  suggested  Felix.  *'  Propose 
Emily  as  chairman  !  He  will  be  too  chivalrous  to  object." 

"A  —  what-do-you-call-it ?  —  a  statesmanlike  proposal," 
said  Franz.  "  How  would  you  like  being  chairman, 
Emily?" 

"  I  would  love  it !  And  I'll  let  all  the  freaks  talk  all  they 
want  to.  What  is  it  you  want  to  talk  about,  Franz,  that's 
so  shocking  ?  " 

"  Sex." 

"  Pooh  —  sex !  "  said  Emily.  "  There's  nothing  shocking 
about  sex." 

44  Shocking  to  the  bourgeois  mind,  my  child." 

14  That's  just  because  you  have  a  bourgeois  mind  yourself ! 
Not  that  I  object  to  being  bourgeois !  What  could  be  more 
delightfully  bourgeois  than  this,  Papa  Franz?"  She  swept 
her  arm  about  in  a  gesture  that  included  them  all.  "  And 
here's  Mamma  Vogelsang  with  tea  and  sandwiches."  She 
helped  herself.  "  Food's  very  bourgeois,  don't  you  think, 
Felix?" 

Felix  smiled  at  the  hit.  It  was  true,  the  atmosphere  of 
the  comfortable  Vogelsang  flat  was  not  proletarian,  nor 
aristocratic,  nor  bohemian  —  it  was  bourgeois,  just  that. 
And  Papa  and  Mamma  Vogelsang,  beaming  upon  their 


226  Moon-Calf 

adopted  children  with  the  most  benevolently  parental  airs, 
and  themselves,  the  affectionate  and  disrespectful  children, 
composed  a  picture  of  respectable  domestic  felicity! 

They  commenced  to  talk  about  going  on  a  little  picnic,  all 
by  themselves,  next  Sunday.  .  .  .  Felix  hated  picnics.  He 
had  unwillingly  been  dragged  to  more  than  one  of  them,  but 
he  loathed  them,  and  he  had  sworn  he  would  never  go  on 
another.  .  .  .  But  he  forgot  this,  and  entered  gaily  into  the 
plans.  .  .  . 

Papa  and  Mamma  Vogelsang,  Emily  and  himself  —  they 
seemed  to  Felix  the  nicest  family  in  all  the  world.  .  .  . 


XXVIII  Discoveries 


THE  plans  of  the  program  committee  were  wildly 
successful.  Pussyfoot  Simpson  was  gently  de 
posed  in  favour  of  Comrade  Emily,  who  found  a 
way  of  expediting  what  was  called  "  business  "  until  it  occu 
pied  but  the  smallest  portion  of  a  meeting.  And  the  rest  of 
the  time  she  used  with  the  assistance  of  her  fellow  committee- 
men,  in  staging  a  kind  of  intellectual  melodrama.  The  spirit 
of  earnest  dulness  which  had  hung  so  heavy  over  the  little 
hall  was  banished,  and  in  its  place  ruled  the  wilful  and 
capricious  impulses  of  intellectual  curiosity,  the  passions  of 
affirmation  and  denial,  and  the  utter  intoxication  of  talk. 
A  new  period  in  the  history  of  Central  Branch  had  begun. 

Everybody  made  speeches  on  the  slightest  provocation ; 
and  with  the  presence  of  women  —  easily  allured,  as  Emily 
had  foretold,  by  food  and  fresh  air  —  with  the  presence  of 
this  audience,  seldom  taking  part  in  the  discussions,  but 
always  a  part  of  them,  a  change  began  to  take  place  in  the 
quality  of  the  debates.  It  was  partly  that  they  began  to  be 
conducted  in  ordinary  English,  instead  of  the  technical 
jargon  of  the  sect;  and  partly  that  nobody,  however  earnest, 
dared  to  be  dull.  Lightness  and  brightness  began  to  appear. 

In  all  of  the  discussions,  Franz  and  Felix  took  leading 
parts,  with  Feinbaum  following  along,  a  somewhat  heavy 
but  occasionally  very  amusing  third,  while  Emily  from  the 
chair  constantly  interjected  the  most  telling  comment  and 
badinage.  The  old  members  began  to  return,  and  the  new 
members  came  regularly.  It  was  the  plan  of  the  committee 
to  get  every  member  of  the  local  in  turn  to  make  a  speech 
on  his  favorite  subject,  whatever  it  was  —  Ireland,  the 
money  question,  spiritualism,  or  free  love  —  and  follow  it 

227 


228  Moon-Calf 

with  a  general  discussion.  They  had  turned  the  meetings 
into  a  forum,  and  everybody,  except  perhaps  poor  old  pussy 
foot  Simpson,  was  delighted. 

Franz,  Emily  and  Felix  were  together  constantly  at  the 
Vogelsang  house,  and  the  meetings  in  Turner  Hall  were  in 
reality  the  efflorescence  of  the  discussions  begun  among 
themselves.  They  congratulated  themselves  upon  their 
success,  and  aspired  to  more  power ;  and  at  the  next  election, 
early  in  the  fall,  they  rearranged  the  offices  to  suit  them 
selves,  electing  the  whole  ticket  which  they  had  privately 
picked.  They  had  not  chosen  to  occupy  any  offices  them 
selves,  but  nevertheless  they  were  recognized  to  be  the  power 
behind  those  officers,  who  asked  them  what  to  do  and  did  it. 
They  called  themselves  the  Triumvirate,  and  commenced  to 
discuss  whom  they  would  send  as  delegates  to  the  state 
convention,  and  who  should  be  their  choice  to  "  run  for  Con 
gress."  Though  the  Socialist  candidate  had  no  chance  of 
winning,  it  was  nevertheless  an  honour  to  be  chosen  for  that 
hopeless  race.  Simpson  had  been  the  congressional  candi 
date  for  the  last  seven  years,  and  doubtless  expected  to  be 
candidate  for  the  next  seven  years  to  come.  The  Triumvi 
rate  thought  differently. 

Their  plans  were  swiftly  made,  and  no  less  swiftly  exe 
cuted.  "  Fred  Hutter  used  to  be  one  of  the  best  men  we 
had,"  mused  Franz.  "  Two  years  ago  he  moved  to  Farring- 
ton.  He  was  secretary  of  the  Structural  Iron  Workers' 
Union  here.  I  hear  he's  been  elected  President  of  the  union 
in  Farrington.  And  he's  as  radical  as  they  make  'em.  He 
would  be  a  good  man  to  nominate.  Simpson  never  saw  the 
inside  of  a  union  hall  in  his  life;  and  he's  nothing  but  a  re 
former,  anyway.  Here  we  get  them  coming  and  going.  All 
the  real  reds,  and  a  good  many  union  men,  will  vote  for 
Hutter.  Farrington  has  a  big  local,  and  they  will  send  a 
strong  delegation  to  the  state  convention.  Port  Royal 
usually  has  the  privilege  of  naming  the  congressional  candi 
date,  because  we  have  the  biggest  vote.  But  if  we  —  if  our 
delegation  —  puts  up  Hutter,  he  will  go  with  a  rush.  It  only 


Discoveries  229 

remains  to  see  that  we  send  the  right  delegation  to  the  con 
vention."  He  took  a  long  puff  at  his  cigar. 

*'  Does  modesty  forbid  —  ?  "  suggested  Felix. 

**  I  was  just  thinking  that  we  would  make  the  best  delega 
tion.  You  and  Emily  and  me ;  and  two  others  —  we  always 
send  five.  Simpson,  of  course,  will  be  sent.  And  the 
other?  "  He  frowned.  "  If  a  word  of  this  leaks  out,  Simp 
son  will  set  the  local  by  the  ears,  and  get  his  own  delegation. 
We  must  have  some  one  we  can  trust.  Which  in  this  case 
means  some  one  who  will  obey  orders.  I  suggest,"  he  smiled 
satirically,  "  J.  Eames  Sergeant." 

Emily  and  Felix  were  startled.  J.  Eames  Sergeant  was  a 
new  member  who  had  entranced  them  by  his  oratorical 
abilities  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  appearance  in  the  local, 
but  whom  subsequently  Franz,  and  gradually  the  other  two 
members  of  the  triumvirate,  had  discovered  to  be  a  fool. 

"  He  will  make  the  nominating  speech,"  said  Franz,  "  and 
carry  the  convention.  We  will  tell  him  what  to  say,  and 
he  will  say  it  —  beautifully.  He  will  impress  everybody  as 
much  as  he  impressed  us  that  first  time  we  heard  him.  Is  it 
all  agreed?" 


The  Vogelsang  slate  was  sprung  on  the  next  meeting,  and 
its  members  unanimously  elected,  Franz  himself  being  the 
one  to  nominate  Simpson  first  of  all.  It  was  Felix's  first 
glimpse  into  practical  politics,  and  it  amused  him  vastly. 

With  no  faintest  notion  of  what  was  about  to  happen  to 
him  at  the  hands  of  his  comrades,  Simpson  vivaciously  ac 
companied  them  on  the  night  journey  to  the  state  capital. 
The  convention  was  held  on  Sunday,  so  that  workingmen 
could  attend  without  losing  a  day's  work.  The  delegation 
sat  in  day  coaches,  tired  and  sleepy,  and  hopeful  of  getting 
at  least  a  nap  during  the  night ;  but  Simpson,  more  jocund 
than  they  had  ever  seen  him  before,  kept  them  awake  with 
his  soft  prattle.  To  Felix,  who  had  been  working  hard  all 
week  and  sitting  up  late  at  night  planning,  this  theft  of  his 


230  Moon-Calf 

repose  furnished  an  emotional  incentive  for  the  coup  which 
he  was  to  assist  in  springing  upon  his  companion. 

In  spite  of  lack  of  sleep,  Felix  made  an  engaging  five- 
minute  speech  early  in  the  convention  proceedings,  which 
resulted  in  his  election  to  the  platform  committee,  and  he 
had  the  pleasure  of  revising  the  style  and  improving  the 
punctuation  of  the  document  already  prepared  by  the 
comrade  who  had  written  the  state  platforms  for  the  last 
fifteen  years.  The  respect  with  which  his  suggestions  were 
listened  to,  and  the  alacrity  with  which  they  were  adopted, 
were  such  a  soothing  tribute  to  his  ego  that  he  began  to  love 
all  his  fellow-men,  including  poor  Simpson,  and  would  fain 
have  relented  at  the  fatal  meeting  of  the  delegation  at  which 
the  other  was  to  meet  his  debacle.  But  he  dared  not  go 
back  on  their  plans,  and  when  Emily,  according  to  schedule, 
rose  to  make  her  carefully  prepared  little  speech,  he  was 
ready  with  his  second. 

Simpson  had  expected  that  the  meeting  would  be  a  mere 
formality,  and  that  his  name  would  be  presented  with  the 
backing  of  the  Port  Royal  delegation.  He  listened  with 
amazement  while  Emily  recited  the  merits  of  Comrade  Hut- 
ter  of  Farrington;  but  his  chivalrous  respect  for  the  femi 
nine  sex  prevented  him  —  as  they  had  expected  —  from 
rising  in  his  wrath  to  destroy  her  when  she  moved  that  Port 
Royal  present  Comrade  Hutter's  name.  Everybody  looked 
at  him,  even  Felix,  and  seemed  to  wait  for  him  to  speak. 
And  then,  an  instant  before  he  could  recover,  Felix  rose  and 
seconded  the  motion.  Comrade  J.  Eames  Sergeant,  whom 
Franz  had  taken  aside  just  before  the  meeting,  called  for  a 
vote.  And  Franz  put  the  question.  It  was  carried.  "  Shall 
we  make  it  unanimous  ?  "  inquired  Franz  blithely,  looking  at 
Simpson,  who  had  remained  silent.  Simpson  recovered 
from  his  lethargy,  and  rose.  "  No !  "  he  screamed.  "  This 
is  treachery !  You  have  betrayed  me !  Scoundrels !  Vil 
lains  !  Cowards ! "  and  rushed  forth  to  pour  into  incredu 
lous  ears  the  story  of  their  infamy. 

In  spite  of  his  efforts  to  spread  the  story,  all  that  most 


Discoveries  231 

of  the  delegates  knew  an  hour  later  when  the  convention  re 
assembled  to  nominate  a  candidate,  was  that  Local  Port 
Royal  had  proposed  Comrade  Hutter  of  Farrington. 
Comrade  Vogelsang,  a  figure  well  known  to  them  from  previ 
ous  conventions,  made  the  nomination.  Local  Farrington, 
surprised  and  delighted,  seconded  it.  Comrade  J.  Eames 
Sergeant  made  an  eloquent  speech.  And  Comrade  Hutter, 
as  Socialist  candidate  for  Congress,  "  went  with  a  rush,"  as 
Franz  had  predicted.  .  .  .  Simpson  took  the  train  home 
before  the  convention  was  over,  and  resigned  at  the  next 
meeting  of  Central  Branch,  after  making  a  speech  predict 
ing  dire  ruin  to  an  organization  dominated  by  "  that  gang 
of  immoral  cut-throats." 


Central  Branch  was  completely  bewildered  by  this  sudden 
explosion.  They  did  not  understand  it.  And  on  the  whole 
—  though  they  liked  Hutter  well  enough,  and  would  have 
been  just  as  well  pleased  if  he  had  won  over  Simpson  in  the 
ordinary  fashion  at  the  convention  —  they  did  not  approve 
these  underground  proceedings.  Franz  rose  to  answer 
their  unspoken  criticism,  and  pointed  out  that  Port  Royal's 
delegation  had  been  uninstructed.  The  delegation  had  used 
its  own  judgment;  and  its  choice  had  been  enthusiastically 
approved  by  the  convention.  He  won  an  intellectual 
victory  —  but  their  emotions  were  against  him.  They  felt 
that  something  had  been  "  put  over  "  on  them. 

Felix  was  now  receiving  his  second  lesson  in  practical 
politics.  He  shared,  and  felt,  the  blame  which  the  branch 
broodingly  cast  upon  the  authors  of  the  Simpson  plot.  He 
knew  that  they  held  his  friend  Franz  responsible,  and  that 
they  blamed  themselves  for  electing  such  new  and  untested 
members  as  himself  and  Emily  and  Sergeant  to  positions 
of  trust.  They  had  been  proud  of  him  and  Emily,  as  brilliant 
youngsters ;  now  they  regarded  them  as  irresponsible 
children.  So  they  had  regarded  J.  Eames  Sergeant  as  a 


232  Moon-Calf 

great  orator;  and  now  they  all  knew  him  for  a  fool.  Felix 
hated  the  atmosphere  of  suspicion  and  silent  reluctant 
hostility  in  which  they  were  all  enveloped.  But  Franz 
laughed.  "  That  is  democracy,"  he  said.  "  Democracy  is 
the  same  everywhere  —  among  Socialists  as  well  as  among 
everybody  else.  How  do  you  suppose  Simpson  got  his 
power  ?  By  doing  the  same  thing  we  did  —  seven  years  ago. 
I  know.  Now  it  is  forgotten  —  and  so  will  our  devilish 
practices  be  forgotten  —  in  seven  weeks.  The  thing  to  do 
is  to  sit  tight.  We  have  the  power.  If  there  were  any  one 
in  the  branch  smarter  than  us  we  would  lose  it.  But  until 
that  happens,  we  are  Central  Branch.  Do  not  worry.  And 
I  suggest  that  this  is  a  good  time  for  you  to  read  one  of 
your  essays  on  evolution.  We  need  to  remind  them  that  we 
have  the  brains." 

In  spite  of  its  ruthlessness,  this  attitude  of  Franz's  pleased 
Felix  by  its  spiritual  robustness.  No,  Franz  did  not  deceive 
himself.  He  knew  how  to  deal  with  people,  that  was  all. 


Felix  was  seeing  a  great  deal  of  Emily  at  Franz's  home. 
She,  too,  was  robust.  She  did  not  worry  about  the  Simp 
son  affair,  though  she  did  not  have,  outspokenly  at  least,  any 
such  scorn  as  Franz  for  the  "  injured  ideals  "  of  the  branch. 
She  laughed  at  Franz's  explanations,  saying,  "  Why  do  you 
pretend  that  we  have  really  done  something  Machiavellian 
and  diabolic,  Papa  Franz  ?  I  have  been  president  of  a  high 
school  sorority,  and  all  this  is  an  old  story  to  me.  Why, 
what  we  did  makes  your  poor  little  plot  pale  into  insignifi 
cance  !  But  you  like  to  think  you  are  wicked,  don't  you  ?  " 

She  was  so  agreeable  and  companionable  and  sensible  and 
sweet  and  merry  and  wise  and  pretty,  so  capable  of  good 
talk  and  quiet  listening,  so  full  of  the  charm  of  healthy  girl 
hood,  that  Felix  wondered  why  he  did  not  fall  in  love  with 
her.  Sometimes,  so  indispensable  had  her  companship  be 
come,  so  eagerly  did  he  look  forward  to  meeting  her,  that 
he  fancied  he  was  in  love  with  her.  But  he  had  only  to 


Discoveries  233 

remember  his  emotions  in  the  factory  at  Vickley,  in  the 
presence  of  Margaret,  to  realize  that  this,  whatever  else  it 
might  be,  was  not  love.  .  .  .  They  talked  a  great  deal  about 
love  at  Franz's.  Once  or  twice,  after  Felix  and  Emily  had 
gone,  Mrs.  Vogelsang  reproved  her  husband.  "  What  would 
people  say  if  they  knew  the  things  you  talk  to  those 
children?"  she  demanded. 

"  They  would  say  that  I  was  putting  immoral  ideas  into 
their  heads,"  he  responded  cheerfully.  "  And  so  I  am.  Not 
that  it  does  any  good.  I  might  as  well  be  the  Ladies'  Home 
Journal,  for  any  effects  I  can  observe  upon  their  conduct. 
They  are  so  proper  that  I  suspect  that  the  truth  is,  they  have 
no  real  inclination  to  be  otherwise.  They  are  content  with 
the  satisfaction  of  their  intellectual  curiosity.  But  some 
times  a  really  wicked  idea  comes  into  my  head.  I  think  to 
myself,  I  will  reform,  and  join  a  church,  and  when  they  come 
here  to  see  me  I  will  preach  virtue  to  them,  and  be  shocked 
when  they  attempt  to  tell  me  their  ideas,  and  assure  them 
that  such  notions  lead  to  immorality.  I  have  observed  that 
immorality  always  sounds  much  more  interesting  when  it 
is  denounced.  I  think  that  by  such  methods  — " 

"  Oh,  hush  —  such  nonsense !  " 

It  was  true.  Discussion  of  "  immoral  ideas  "  seemed  to 
have  an  antiseptic  effect  upon  their  emotions.  They  dis 
cussed  themselves  so  freely  that  there  was  none  of  the  excite 
ment  of  uncertainty  left  in  their  attitude  toward  each  other. 
When  Felix  took  Emily  home,  and  when  sometimes  they 
paused  on  the  way  to  sit  and  talk  a  little  in  one  of  the  leaf 
less  little  parks,  Felix  might  ask  himself  if  this  lovely  girl 
beside  him  would  like  to  have  him  put  his  arm  about  her: 
he  might  ask,  but  he  knew  the  answer  already  —  she  would 
not.  That  is,  she  wouldn't  mind,  but  it  would  mean  nothing 
to  her  but  a  comradely  caress.  And  somehow  Felix  did  not 
like  the  idea  of  a  "  comradely  caress."  Love,  he  felt, —  in 
spite  of  an  effort  to  confine  it  within  the  sphere  of  his 
Socialist  theories  —  was  something  not  comradely  in  the 
least.  He  had  an  unhappy  prevision  of  himself  as  falling 


234  Moon-Calf 

in  love  —  really  falling  in  love  —  with  some  worthless  little 
hussy  who  would  not  understand,  who  would  not  even  want 
to  understand,  the  Marxian  theory  of  value.  It  would  serve 
him  right !  He  ought  to  love  Emily.  But  he  didn't. 

He  thought  that  at  least  he  might  try.  He  put  an  experi 
mental  arm  around  her  one  night  as  they  sat  in  the  park. 
She  was  talking  —  oddly  enough,  about  love  —  and  ap 
parently  did  not  notice  that  his  arm  was  there ;  and  after  a 
while  he  removed  it.  She  did  not  notice  that  either.  He 
was  glad  she  had  not.  He  never  tried  the  experiment  again. 


XXIX  The  Transvaluation  of  Values 


HE  had  not  gone  to  see  Helen  for  a  long  time.     At 
first  he  stayed  away  in  obscure  defiance;  then  in 
embarrassment.     Suddenly,  after  a  long  lapse  of 
time,  he  realized  that  he  had   forgotten  about  her!     The 
emotional  hold  she  had  had  on  him  no  longer  existed.     He 
could  go  and  see  her  or  not,  without  strange  and  perturbing 
emotions. 

One  reason  why  he  had  not  wanted  to  go  to  see  her  was 
because  of  a  conversation  she  had  suggested,  in  regard  to 
his  career.  He  had  not  wanted  to  tell  her  that  he  was  going 
to  keep  on  working  and  not  go  back  to  school.  Perhaps 
he  had  not  wanted  to  tell  her  that  because  it  seemed  so 
terrible  —  for  it  had  seemed  terrible.  But  ever  since  Franz 
had  assured  him  that  he  could  go  on  not  only  to  school  but 
to  college,  it  had  ceased  to  seem  terrible.  The  day  when 
school  opened  had  come  and  gone,  almost  unnoticed,  certainly 
without  a  pang.  Even  Ed  and  Alice  had  done  no  more 
than  ask  him  if  he  did  not  want  to  quit  work  and  go  back; 
something  in  his  own  attitude,  some  lessening  of  the  emo 
tional  tension  in  his  mind  in  regard  to  that  question,  had  made 
them  satisfied  with  his  brief  and  casual  answer. 

He  went  to  see  Helen  one  evening.  She  received  him 
with  pleasure,  and  asked  where  he  had  been  all  this  time. 
He  explained  that  he  had  been  working.  He  noticed  that 
they  met  as  old  friends;  and  the  past,  to  which  they  both 
referred,  might  have  been  a  past  of  years  agone.  He  realized 
that  she  was  a  very  nice  person  —  one  of  the  nicest  people  he 
knew.  He  must  go  to  see  her  oftener.  ...  It  was  strange, 
that  now  he  should  no  longer  either  worship  or  resent  her! 
Something  had  happened.  He  wondered  at  it,  and  vaguely 

235 


236  Moon-Calf 

realized  that  his  friendship  for  Franz  had  something  to  do 
with  it. 

He  did  go  to  see  her  now  and  then.  He  felt  as  though  he 
came  from  a  different  world  —  a  world  more  real  than  hers. 
But  her  world  interested  him.  .  .  .  She  found  him  very 
grown  up  —  and  didn't  know  whether  she  quite  liked  it  or 
not.  Something  had  happened  to  him.  Could  he  be  in 
love  ?  She  almost  added,  in  her  thoughts,  "  with  somebody 
else?" 


What  Franz  had  predicted  proved  true.  The  cloud  of 
suspicion,  of  hostility,  gradually  melted  in  the  Central  Branch 
meetings;  Franz  recovered  his  old  power,  and  Felix  and 
Emily  again  became  the  brilliant  youngsters  they  had  been  in 
the  esteem  of  their  comrades ;  only  J.  Fames  Sergeant  re 
mained  in  the  outer  darkness,  and  finally  he  went  off  with 
Peck  and  joined  the  Spiritualists.  Felix  breathed  freely  once 
more. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  months,  his  character  had  appeared 
to  change  radically.  Certainly  he  was  no  longer  the  shy  boy 
he  had  been.  He  was  now  so  accustomed  to  speaking  to 
grown  men  as  one  of  them,  to  having  his  opinions  received 
with  respect,  and  to  find  himself  guiding  their  actions  in 
matters  of  technical  political  policy,  that  it  never  occurred 
to  him  now  to  be  afraid  of  anybody.  He  moved  among  men 
and  women  with  ease,  buoyed  by  a  profound  self-confidence. 
.  .  .  He  had  been  receiving  a  political  education  in  the  true 
sense.  Though  he  had  forgotten  the  little  red  pamphlet 
which  had  first  led  him  to  Socialism,  its  promises  for  the 
future  of  mankind  had  already  been  fulfilled  for  him  in  one 
important  respect.  He  had,  indeed,  been  living  in  ancient 
Greece;  he  was  a  citizen  in  a  free  commonwealth,  and  a 
power  in  the  assembly  of  his  equals. 


The  Transvaluation  of  Values      237 
3 

He  had  learned  many  things  from  Franz.  He  was  still 
engaged,  day  by  day,  in  the  process  of  what  Franz  called 
"  the  transvaluation  of  values."  He  was  struggling  with  his 
romantic  weaknesses,  trying  to  adjust  himself  to  the  world  in 
which  he  lived.  It  was  a  hard  task,  and  he  was  only  partly 
successful.  .  .  . 

His  work  at  the  factory  had  become  a  nightmare.  The 
Christmas  rush  had  begun,  and  there  were  two  vacuum-pans 
for  him  to  operate;  he  had  to  get  one  batch  ready  while  the 
other  was  cooking  under  steam-pressure;  and  the  suction 
engine  on  the  second  vacuum-pan  was  in  bad  shape  and 
would  constantly  fill  him  with  cold  terror  by  stopping.  He 
could  vividly  imagine  the  bursting  of  the  vessel,  and  the 
spattering  of  that  hundred  pounds  of  white-hot  liquid  death. 
They  were  getting  out  twenty  batches  a  day  instead  of  ten, 
and  he  had  no  leisure  for  even  a  moment's  rest.  His  dands 
and  arms  were  covered  with  half-healed  scratches  and  burns, 
and  the  scrubbing  of  the  dirty  kettles  on  Saturday  afternoons 
became  so  much  of  an  agony  that  Felix  was  thankful  when 
these  weekly  cleansings  were  discontinued,  and  they  trod 
upon  a  floor  covered  with  hard  accumulated  filth  an  inch 
thick.  In  his  anxiety  over  getting  each  new  batch  ready  he 
would  forget  to  record  the  proportions  of  sugar  and  glucose 
used  in  the  last,  and  at  the  end  of  the  day  he  would  have  to 
remember  desperately,  or  guiltily  guess  at,  the  figures ;  and 
once  the  foreman  found  the  empty  slip  on  which  he  should 
have  recorded  the  day's  work,  and  was  bitterly  sceptical  of 
Felix's  assurances  that  he  had  the  figures  all  in  his  head. 
In  his  haste  he  made  mistakes,  using  too  much  of  sugar  or 
of  glucose,  or  reversing  the  proportions ;  and  twice  he  spoiled 
a  batch  altogether.  Elephant  came  to  his  assistance  by  de 
claring  that  the  scales  were  inaccurate,  and  the  foreman's 
wrath  was  averted.  But  privately,  Elephant  told  Felix  that 
the  only  thing  the  matter  with  the  scales  was  that  he  had 
slopped  so  much  glucose  on  them  that  they  were  stuck  to- 


238  Moon-Calf 

gether,  and  that  he,  Felix,  was  the  messiest,  absent- 
mindedest,  God-damn  carelessest  person  he  had  ever  seen 
around  a  factory. 

Felix  knew  that  the  criticism  was  just. 

He  told  these  things  to  Franz,  who  only  smiled  satirically, 
and  said,  "  You'll  learn."  When  Felix  demanded  something 
more  specific,  he  reminded  Felix  that  somebody  who  could 
do  the  work  properly  had  been  fired  the  summer  before,  and 
Felix  put  in4iis  place.  **  They  purposely  chose  an  incompe- 
tant  person,  to  save  money.  So  you  need  not  worry  about 
that.  It  is  their  lookout.  I  do  not  sympathize  with  them  — 
I  do  not  care  how  many  batches  you  spoil.  But  you  are 
learning  something.  You  have  not  finished  learning  it,  but 
I  expect  you  will  before  very  long.  And  when  you  have 
learned  it,  you  will  not  mind  the  pain  you  have  suffered  in 
learning  it.  No,  I  shall  not  tell  you  what  it  is.  That  is  for 
you  to  find  out.  Meanwhile,  I  only  tell  you  not  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself  for  not  being  able  to  do  a  man's  work; 
and  not  to  be  sorry  for  yourself  either,  since  it  was  you  who 
asked  them  for  this  job,  not  they  who  asked  you  to  do  it." 

"  Not  to  be  ashamed  of  myself,  and  not  to  be  sorry  for 
myself,"  pondered  Felix.  "  What  then  ?  " 

"  Use  your  brains." 

Felix  endeavoured  to  do  so,  and  when  the  day's  work  was 
lengthened  from  ten  to  fourteen  hours,  he  asked  for  a  raise. 
The  foreman  glared  at  him ;  he  had  been  slow  that  day,  and 
had  only  caught  up  with  the  schedule  by  the  assistance  of 
Elephant,  who  watched  one  of  his  batches  while  Felix 
weighed  out  the  other.  But  the  foreman  was  helpless;  it 
was  impossible  to  get  another  person  to  do  Felix's  job  at 
this  time  of  year  except  by  paying  him  much  more  than 
Felix  asked.  So  Felix's  wages  were  increased  from  seven 
to  ten  dollars,  which  with  his  overtime  made  a  sum  of 
sixteen  dollars  a  week.  When  Felix  reported  this  to  Franz, 
the  only  comment  was,  "  So  far,  so  good.  But  you  know 
what  will  happen  to  you  when  the  Christmas  rush  is  over, 
I  suppose."  Felix  guessed  what  would  happen;  and  when, 


The  Transvaluation  of  Values      239 

on  the  Saturday  before  Christmas,  he  was  incontinently  fired, 
he  was  not  surprised.  .  .  .  But  he  could  not  imagine  what 
it  was  that  Franz  thought  he  should  have  done.  He  had 
hung  on  as  long  as  he  could ;  what  more  could  he  do  ? 

4 

He  looked  about  a  little  before  he  went  to  ask  for  another 
job.  When  he  finally  went  into  a  printing  office,  it  was  with 
a  dim  memory  of  what  he  had  read  about  Franklin's  early 
career,  mixed  with  his  own  childhood  love  of  printing,  with 
cheap  sets  of  rubber  type.  But  even  as  he  entered,  he  smiled 
at  himself.  Franz  would  say  this  was  just  another  example 
of  his  romantic  folly.  He  was  not  living  in  Franklin's  day, 
but  in  the  era  of  electric  power;  and  sure  enough,  when  he 
was  given  a  job,  it  was  feeding  a  hand-press  that  was  run 
by  a  whirling  belt  from  an  electrically-turned  shaft.  This 
was  not  printing,  he  reflected,  but  tending  a  machine.  Never 
theless  he  set  to  work  learning  his  job. 

He  had  to  take  out  with  his  left  hand  the  printed  sheet 
that  lay  in  the  jaws  of  the  press,  and  in  the  same  instant 
put  in  a  fresh  sheet  with  his  right  hand,  laying  it  carefully 
igainst  the  little  metal  guides  so  that  it  would  register  —  and 
ill  this  must  be  done  while  the  jaws  of  the  insatiable  little 
nonster  swiftly  opened  and  closed.  If  his  hand  stayed  there 
i  second  too  long,  it  would  be  crushed  to  a  pulp  —  unless, 
vith  his  other  hand,  he  grasped  and  pulled  the  lever  provided 
'or  such  emergencies. 

Felix,  in  spite  of  his  clumsiness,  had  a  potential  manual 
lexterity ;  the  only  thing  which  kept  him  from  being  a  good 
tress-feeder  was  his  fear  of  getting  his  hand  caught.  He 
an  his  press  slowly  at  first,  as  was  expected  of  him  while 
e  was  learning;  but  after  a  few  days  the  impatience  of  the 
oreman  —  and  still  more  than  that,  the  banter  of  his  f ellow- 
eeders,  boys  no  older  than  himself,  but  expert  in  their  task 
-  spurred  him  to  an  increasing  swiftness.  Within  a  week 
e  was  running  the  machine  at  full  speed,  and  only  when  a 


240  Moon-Calf 

recurrent  fear  would  come  over  him  did  his  right  hand 
slight  the  rapid  but  careful  touch  which  pressed  the  paper 
accurately  against  the  guides.  When  this  fear  did  come, 
he  would  grow  increasingly  nervous  and  awkward,  and 
finally  would  have  to  pull  the  lever  to  save  his  hand  from 
being  caught.  After  such  an  incident  he  would  stand  at  his 
machine  perspiring  and  trembling  for  a  minute,  and  then, 
bracing  himself,  would  set  it  going  again ;  at  first  slowly,  and 
then  by  degrees  more  swiftly,  until  it  was  running  as  fast 
as  those  of  the  two  boys  beside  him,  who  whistled  and 
laughed  and  talked  at  their  work,  unconscious  of  any  danger. 
He  forced  himself  to  emulate  their  unconsciousness.  His 
pride,  if  not  his  will,  was  strong  enough  to  throw  him  into  a 
self-induced  hypnotic  state  of  indifference,  and  day  after  day 
he  stood  above  his  machine  talking  and  laughing  like  them  as 
he  made  the  quick,  automatic  movements  which  put  in  and 
took  out  the  paper. 

But  one  night,  after  he  had  spent  the  evening  writing,  he 
had  a  dream.  He  dreamed  that  he  had  come  home  and  tried 
to  write,  and  that  he  could  not  pick  up  his  pen,  and  when  he 
looked  closely,  he  found  that  he  had  no  hand !  He  woke  in 
a  fit  of  terror,  and  instantly  his  mind  went  back  to  the  print 
ing  office.  He  saw  himself  standing  above  his  press,  thrust 
ing  that  hand  into  the  champing  jaws  of  the  machine  —  the 
Little  Wonder,  it  was  called,  but  he  had  come  to  call  it  in 
his  own  mind  the  Little  Devil.  For  it  had  a  soul,  evil  and 
tricky.  It  rebelled  against  the  servitude  to  which  it  was 
doomed  by  capitalism;  and  it  took  its  revenge  upon  those 
who  were  doomed  to  serve  it.  In  dumb  patient  hatred,  it 
waited  the  moment  when  it  could  sink  its  fangs  into  the  hand 
of  its  slave-master.  Felix  thought  of  his  brother  Jim,  who 
had  given  to  a  machine,  one  by  one,  pieces  of  five  fingers  and 
thumbs.  .  .  .  He  saw  himself,  thrusting  his  hand  —  his  right 
hand  —  the  hand  he  used  to  write  with  —  into  that  wicked 
little  machine.  And  not  once,  but  a  hundred,  a  thousand, 
ten  thousand  times,  over  and  over,  day  after  day,  week  after 


The  Trans  valuation  of  Values      241 

week, —  with  incredible  rapidity,  once  a  second,  sixty  times 
a  minute.  It  was  only  a  question  of  time.  .  .  .  He  saw  him 
self,  putting  his  precious  hand  into  that  terrible  jaw,  and 
turned  uncomfortably  on  his  pillow.  Was  this  himself  that 
he  saw?  Was  it  true?  No,  it  was  not  possible,  it  was  an 
absurd  dream.  But  it  was  true.  He  was  doing  that.  In 
his  half -dreaming  state  he  asked  himself,  was  it  because  he 
had  to  —  because  he  was  a  prisoner,  condemned  for  some 
horrible  crime  to  such  a  punishment  ?  No,  he  had  asked  for 
that  job.  Absurd !  .  .  .  He  twisted  and  writhed  in  his  bed. 
It  all  seemed  so  impossible,  so  grotesque,  so  silly. 


In  the  morning  the  nightmarish  light  which  his  dream  had 
cast  over  his  waking  life  had  not  quite  vanished.  He  walked 
soberly  to  the  shop,  and  going  up  to  the  foreman  asked  to  be 
transferred  to  some  other  department.  He  did  not  think  he 
would  make  a  good  press-feeder.  The  foreman  frowned, 
and  sent  him  into  the  lithographing  department. 

Here  he  was  put  to  work  on  the  "  bronzing  machine." 
Great  sheets  of  beer-labels,  fresh  from  the  press,  and  cov 
ered  with  slightly  sticky  areas,  were  fed  into  the  top  of  the 
machine,  and  came  out  at  the  bottom  with  those  same  sticky 
areas  dusted  over  with  a  fine  bronze  powder.  This  was  the 
way  "  gold-printing  "  was  done. 

The  bronzing-machine  was  in  a  little  coop  by  itself. 
Felix  and  another  boy  ran  it,  one  feeding  in  the  sheets  at 
the  top,  and  the  other  straightening  them  as  they  came  out 
at  the  bottom.  It  was  easy  enough  work,  but  the  air  of 
the  little  coop  was  filled  with  the  fine  floating  bronze-dust. 
He  breathed  it  into  his  lungs,  and  his  throat  became  sore 
with  it.  Eyes,  mouth,  nose,  skin,  scalp,  were  bronzed  at 
the  end  of  the  day,  and  it  could  hardly  be  washed  out. 

After  a  week  of  this  work,  Felix  rebelled,  and  threw  up 
the  job. 

He  went  to  Franz. 


242  Moon-Calf 

"  Well !  "  said  Franz.     "  At  last !  " 

Felix  was  puzzled. 

"  I've  been  waiting  to  see  you  throw  up  a  job,"  explained 
Franz.  "  You've  finally  done  it.  How  do  you  feel  ?  " 

"Fine!"  said  Felix. 

"  I  thought  so,"  said  his  mentor.  He  lighted  a  cigar,  and 
settled  himself  comfortably  in  his  chair.  "  You  have  fool 
ish  ideas  in  your  head.  You  hate  work,  and  so  you  do 
whatever  comes  along.  That  is  silly.  One  must  choose. 
You  have  begun,  by  choosing  not  to  do  something.  Now 
see  if  you  can  take  the  next  step  —  choose  to  do  something. 
What  is  it  you  would  like  to  do  ?  " 

Felix  went  away  thoughtfully.  Going  home,  he  scrubbed 
the  hateful  bronze-dust  thoroughly  out  of  his  skin,  and 
swore  that  he  would  never  again  do  any  kind  of  work  he 
did  not  like.  Next  morning  he  put  on  his  best  clothes  and 
strolled  down  town.  He  wandered  about  all  morning,  look 
ing  in  a  leisurely  manner  in  at  shop  windows,  surveying 
factories  from  the  outside  with  a  speculative  and  disdainful 
air,  and  obeying  the  impulse  which  told  him  to  keep  away 
from  them.  But  what  was  it  he  did  want  to  do  ?  He  went 
to  visit  Feinbaum  in  his  little  tailor  shop,  and  listened,  with 
out  hearing,  to  the  other's  "  idees."  He  had  some  lunch, 
and  wandered  about  town  again.  In  the  afternoon  he 
stopped  in  front  of  the  Port  Royal  News;  there  was  a  new 
press  right  behind  the  plate-glass  window,  so  everybody 
could  see  it.  Felix  watched  the  first  edition  run  off,  and 
then  started  away. 


Then  he  stopped,  and  came  back.  If  he  chose  what  he 
wanted  to  do,  he  would  choose  to  work  on  a  newspaper. 
.  .  .  He  looked  in  at  the  window.  A  man  was  wiping  the 
ink  off  the  rollers.  .  .  .  Should  Felix  go  in  and  ask  for  a 
job? 

No  —  there  was  no  use.     He  started  away  again. 


The  Transvaluation  of  Values      243 

But  an  idea  came  to  him.  He  might  get  a  job  wiping  off 
the  rollers,  or  something  like  that ;  and  in  time  —  some  day, 
perhaps  —  he  would  get  a  chance  to  write  for  the  paper. 
.  .  .  Anyway,  there  was  no  harm  in  trying  to  get  that  job 
wiping  off  the  rollers. 

He  turned  back,  and  went  into  the  office. 

In  the  first  edition  which  Felix  had  seen  run  off  the  press, 
and  which  was  just  being  sold  on  the  streets,  there  was  an 
advertisement,  offering  some  young  man  a  chance  to  learn 
reporting.  The  man  in  the  office  thought  Felix  had  come  in 
answer  to  that  advertisement,  and  sent  him  upstairs  to  the 
city  editor.  The  city  editor  talked  to  him  for  three  minutes, 
offered  him  eight  dollars  a  week  to  start,  and  told  him  to 
come  around  next  Monday  morning. 

Felix  went  away  infinitely  astonished. 


XXX  Vistas 

i 

THAT  night  Felix  hurried  to  the  Vogelsang  flat,  to 
give  the  news  of  the  great  event.  Franz  was 
pleased,  but  when  Felix  began  to  insist  that  it  was 
due  to  his  advice,  he  demurred. 

41  The  fact  that  you  have  a  little  more  sense  than  you 
used  to  have,  is  due  to  me,"  he  said.  *'  But  what  you  do 
with  it  is  your  own  affair.  Don't  try  to  make  me  out  a 
fortune-teller." 

"Haven't  you  admitted  that  you  know  everything?" 
countered  Felix. 

"  It  is  all  right  for  me  to  say  such  things  about  myself. 
But  you  should  not  say  them  to  me.  For  I,  too,  am  human, 
all  too  human.  It  is  all  right  for  me  to  pose  as  knowing 
everything ;  but  if  I  once  begin  to  believe  what  I  say,  I  am 
lost.  Be  very  careful,  young  man,  or  you  will  get  me  to 
making  a  fool  of  myself." 

"  Yes,  he  is  egotistic  enough  as  it  is,"  commented  his  wife. 

"  It  is  not,"  explained  Franz,  "  that  I  mind  taking  the 
credit  for  your  successes.  But  I  do  not  wish  to  be  held  re 
sponsible  for  your  failures.  No,  this  new  job  is  your  own 
affair.  You  got  it ;  see  that  you  keep  it.  And  if  you  get 
fired  in  a  month,  do  not  come  blaming  me." 


Felix  found  that  his  first  duties  on  the  newspaper  were  to 
*'  meet  the  trains  "  and  learn  to  run  a  typewriter.  "  Meet 
ing  the  trains  "  meant  going  to  the  railway  station  and  get 
ting  the  names  and  addresses  of  everybody  who  came  to 
town  or  went  away,  even  if  only  for  a  day's  visit.  This 
proved  to  be  easier  than  Felix  would  have  supposed.  He 

244 


Vistas  245 

had  only  to  go  up  to  people  in  a  business-like  way,  touch 
his  hat,  and  rattle  off  the  formula  he  composed.  "  Good 
morning.  I  am  a  reporter  for  the  News.  Will  you  give  me 
your  name  and  address?  Mrs.  John  T.  Brown. 
B-r-o-w-n?  Yes.  1-3-4-2  Magnolia  Boulevard.  And  you 
are  going  where?  Christopher  Town.  To  visit  whom? 
Relatives.  For  how  long?  A  week.  Thank  you!"  It 
seemed  that  if  he  ignored  the  fact  that  this  was  an  imper 
tinence,  so  did  the  people  whom  he  subjected  to  this  inqui 
sition.  It  was  not  really,  he  thought,  that  they  were  anx 
ious  to  see  their  names  in  a  newspaper;  it  was  rather  that 
they  submitted  to  any  inquiry  which  had  an  official  air. 
This  brisk  and  authoritative  mode  of  procedure  enabled 
him  to  "  clean  up  "  a  crowded  station  in  fifteen  minutes, 
and  bring  in  nearly  a  column  of  these  items  daily.  It  was 
foolish  drudgery,  of  course;  but  he  did  not  mind  facing 
people  now,  and  so  it  was  not,  as  it  would  have  been  a  year 
before,  exquisitely  painful;  it  was  merely  a  bore. 

He  was  given  the  "  lodge  run  "  on  Monday  and  Thurs 
day  evenings,  and  went  from  hall  to  hall  interviewing  sus 
picious  sergeants-at-arms  through  the  wicket  in  the  doors, 
and  eliciting  the  names  of  newly  elected  officials.  On  the 
second  day,  the  undertakers,  the  banks,  and  a  list  of  law 
yer's  offices  were  added  to  his  "  run."  At  the  undertaker's 
he  met  the  Record  reporter,  Deems  Morgan,  a  cub  like  him 
self,  who  initiated  him  into  the  "  first  principles  of  report 
ing,"  which  he  himself  had  only  recently  learned. 

They  were  in  the  little  back  room  of  the  undertaker's  es 
tablishment,  Felix  seated  in  a  chair  and  Deems  comfortably 
reclining  on  the  pine  box  which  was  to  enclose  a  coffin, 
smoking  a  cigarette,  while  Harkness,  the  affable  red-headed 
undertaker,  was  arranging  the  draperies  becomingly  about 
a  corpse  in  a  coffin  on  the  other  side  of  the  room.  "  The 
first  great  principle  of  newspaper  work,"  enunciated  Deems, 
blowing  out  a  cloud  of  cigarette  smoke,  "  is  to  loaf  on  the 
job.  Isn't  that  so,  Bill?"  He  turned  to  the  undertaker 
for  confirmation. 


246  Moon-Calf 

"  'S  been  my  experience,"  agreed  the  undertaker,  stand 
ing  off  to  view  his  handiwork  critically.  "  The  best  re 
porters  were  the  ones  that  loafed  the  most.  Never  knew  a 
reporter  that  didn't  loaf,  to  amount  to  anything.  Usually 
got  fired  right  off." 

"  You  see,"  explained  Deems,  "  you  have  to  loaf  either  in 
the  office  or  outside  —  because  there's  not  enough  work  to 
keep  you  busy.  And  if  you  loaf  around  the  office,  the  city 
editor  doesn't  like  it.  It's  a  reflection  on  him.  He  has  to 
work  all  the  harder  to  keep  you  busy,  and  he  commences  to 
be  sore  at  you.  If  you're  out  a  long  time  on  a  story,  that 
means  that  you've  had  hard  work  getting  it,  and  that  means 
that  you  are  a  good  reporter.  If  you  loaf  enough,  you  get 
your  wages  raised.  You  just  try  it  and  see." 

Felix  was  amused  but  incredulous. 

"  The  next  great  principle  is  to  forget  all  you  ever  read 
in  books  about  reporting.  You  read  in  books  about 
'  scoops '  and  '  beats.'  There's  nothing  to  it.  In  practice, 
you  find  that  the  best  way  is  to  tell  the  reporter  from  the 
other  paper  all  you  know,  and  let  him  tell  you  all  he  knows. 
Team  work,  that's  the  idea.  Never  try  to  put  anything 
over  on  the  rival  reporter.  It  doesn't  pay." 

This  was  so  revolutionary  an  idea,  so  opposed  to  all  that 
Felix  had  read  in  romantic  fiction  about  reporting,  that  he 
suspected  it  might  really  be  true.  At  any  rate,  it  was  very 
interesting. 

'*  The  third  great  principle  of  newspaper  work  is  to  turn 
in  a  big  expense  account.  That  won't  bother  you  and  me 
for  a  while,  but  keep  it  in  mind.  It  impresses  a  city  editor 
when  he  sees  how  much  carfare  and  long-distance  tolls  you 
have  run  up  in  getting  a  story.  He  knows  the  story  is  good 
when  it  costs  money  to  get,  and  he  puts  a  big  headline  over 
it,  and  you  get  a  reputation  as  a  *  star/ —  But  the  greatest 
principle  of  all  is  the  first:  loaf  on  the  job." 

Felix  was  not  wholly  convinced.  If  he  spent  more  time 
at  the  undertaker's  than  need  be,  it  was  to  enjoy  Deems 
Morgan's  talk.  He  liked  Deems,  and  began  unconsciously 


Vistas  247 

to  imitate  him  in  the  slouch  with  which  he  wore  his  hat, 
and  in  the  smoking  of  cigarettes.  At  first  he  did  not  like 
them,  but  he  did  not  become  sick,  and  he  persevered.  It 
made  their  talks,  in  the  gruesome  milieu  of  the  back  of  un 
dertakers'  establishments,  more  companionable  to  be  thus 
both  smoking  cigarettes. 

On  the  third  day,  Felix  got  his  first  real  "  assignment " 
—  a  trivial  one,  but  not  without  its  thrill  for  Felix. 

"  The  Jews  are  having  some  kind  of  holiday,"  said  the 
city  editor.  "  Go  to  Rabbi  Nathan  —  you'll  find  him  at  the 
new  synagogue  up  on  Main  Street  —  and  get  something 
about  it.  If  you  can  make  it  interesting  enough,  you  can 
write  anything  up  to  half  a  column.  And  don't  try  to  be 
funny  about  it,  either  —  the  owner  of  this  paper  is  a  Jew." 

Felix  had  no  intention  of  being  funny  about  it.  He  in 
tended  to  write  a  column  story  so  interesting  that  every 
body  would  read  it  —  and  to  make  sure  of  his  facts  before 
hand,  he  read  all  that  the  public  library  could  furnish  of  in 
formation  about  that  particular  holiday,  and  the  religion  of 
the  Jews  in  general;  and  armed  with  this  information,  he 
went  to  get  his  interview.  It  had  been  reassuring  to  learn 
from  Deems  that  the  synagogue  up  on  Main  Street  be 
longed  to  the  "  Reformed  "  Jewish  faith,  and  that  part  of 
its  services  were  conducted  in  English.  .  .  .  Doubtless  the 
Rabbi's  speech  would  be  fairly  intelligible  to  him. 

3 

To  Felix's  surprise,  the  young  man  in  ordinary  clothes 
who  invited  him  into  his  study  at  the  back  of  the  synagogue 
was  the  Rabbi  himself.  There  was  something  familiar 
about  him ;  Felix  was  sure  he  had  seen  him  somewhere  be 
fore.  His  voice  —  a  rich,  clear,  resonant  voice  —  was  par 
ticularly  reminiscent  of  some  incident  in  Felix's  past;  but 
it  was  not  until  the  interview  was  over,  and  Felix  was  on 
his  way  back  to  the  office,  that  he  realized  that  the  Rabbi 
was  the  stranger  with  whom  he  had  talked  for  a  moment 


248  Moon-Calf 

in  front  of  Turner  Hall,  a  year  or  two  ago,  when  he  first 
came  to  town !  .  .  . 

But  even  before  that  memory  came,  Felix  was  delighted 
with  the  man  he  had  come  to  interview.  Felix  mentioned 
some  more  or  less  recondite  fact  about  the  origin  of  the 
holiday  in  question,  and  the  Rabbi  began  to  talk  about  it 
in  the  manner  of  a  scientific  observer  —  interestedly,  and 
yet  disinterestedly,  with  all  the  air  of  a  book  on  compara 
tive  religion.  He  added  to  Felix's  store  of  knowledge  many 
quaint  and  humanly  interesting  facts,  and  an  hour  passed  as 
pleasantly  for  Felix  as  ever  it  had  in  the  world  of  books. 
Here  was  a  discovery  indeed!  Why,  this  man  was  not  a 
preacher  at  all,  he  was  a  scholar.  Felix  determined  to  see 
more  of  him. 

As  for  the  young  Rabbi,  he  was  hardly  less  pleased  with 
Felix.  To  find  a  reporter  who  knew  anything  about  the 
subject  he  had  come  to  ask  about,  was  a  new  and  refreshing 
experience.  And  when  that  afternoon  he  read  the  lucid  and 
sympathetic  column  in  the  News,  his  opinion  was  confirmed. 

"  Did  you  really  say  just  that?"  asked  the  Rabbi's  wife, 
when  he  had  shown  her  the  story. 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  But  he  has  caught  almost  the  trick  of 
my  style.  Look  at  that  sentence :  '  In  proportion  as  they 
suffered,  they  came  to  have  less  regard  for  the  dignities  of 
the  priesthood,  and  more  enthusiasm  for  the  warm  reassur 
ances  of  prophecy.'  That,  my  dear,  is  the  English  lan 
guage,  and  I  think  it  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  been  repre 
sented  in  our  local  press  as  speaking  it.  The  question  of 
whether  those  are  my  exact  words  is  of  minor  importance." 

4 

By  the  end  of  his  first  week,  Felix  had  become  super 
ficially  acquainted  with  his  fellow  reporters  on  the  News. 
There  was  no  one  that  he  liked  so  well  as  Deems.  The  one 
he  had  most  chance  to  talk  with  seemed  to  Felix  a  rather 
objectionable  person — Philip  Vincent,  his  name  was.  Be 
sides  his  ordinary  reportorial  duties,  he  held  the  position  of 


Vistas  249 

"  dramatic  editor."  He  was  an  egotistic,  affected  young 
man,  who  wore  a  negligent  Windsor  tie,  sported  yellow 
gloves,  and  sometimes  carried  a  stick.  He  supposed  himself 
to  be  a  brilliant  writer,  and  wrote  what  to  Felix  seemed  insuf 
ferable  nonsense  about  the  current  plays.  *'  Smart-Alec 
stuff !  "  said  Felix  to  himself  contemptuously,  reading  the 
patter  which  occupied  the  rest  of  a  page  almost  filled  with 
photographs  of  the  leading  actors  and  most  beautiful 
actresses  of  the  week.  Its  tone  was  that  of  a  dressing- 
room  familiarity  with  the  personalities  of  the  actors  and 
actresses  in  question  —  a  gossipy,  allusive,  artificially-witty 
style.  Felix  knew  —  though  he  had  not  been  to  the  theatre 
a  dozen  times  in  his  life  —  how  dramatic  criticism  should 
be  written.  He  wished  that  he  had  Vincent's  page.  But  it 
never  occurred  to  him  that  his  secret  dislike  of  Vincent 
was  envy. 

The  baseball  reporter,  Sells,  was  a  bluff,  hearty  person, 
inclined  to  fatness.  He  wrote  with  ease  in  the  cacophonous 
jargon  in  which  it  was  at  that  time  the  custom  to  report 
sporting  events ;  but  he  did  not  pride  himself,  as  Vincent 
did,  on  his  style.  He  carried  in  his  pocket  a  little  vol 
ume  of  Charles  Lamb's  essays,  and  was  understood  to  have 
once  upon  a  time  had  an  essay  of  his  own  accepted  by  the 
Atlantic  Monthly.  On  the  strength  of  this,  Felix  had  once 
undertaken  to  talk  to  him  about  books,  but  Sells  had  read, 
it  seemed,  nothing  written  in  the  last  fifty  years.  Jack 
London  and  Frank  Norris  were  mere  names  to  him ;  he 
supposed  that  they  wrote  "  historical  novels,  like  Booth 
Tarkington."  A  queer  person! 

Hemenway,  the  city  hall  and  police  reporter,  was  a 
frowning,  short-sighted,  very  busy  person,  who  would  come 
in  hurriedly  and  sit  down  at  his  typewriter  as  though  he 
were  about  to  write  some  vastly  important  revelation  of 
bribery,  corruption  and  scandal  in  municipal  politics,  though 
when  Felix  scanned  his  laboriously  written  columns  in  the 
evening  paper  they  seemed  to  be  merely  the  minutes  of  one 
;>f  the  dullest  council  meetings  ever  held.  Yet  this  man 


250  Moon-Calf 

was  reputed  to  be  the  best  "  crime  reporter "  in  town. 
Doubtless  there  were  events  to  which  his  meticulous  and 
dogged  accuracy  gave  a  richer  significance,  but  Felix  had  as 
yet  no  reason  to  feel  in  awe  of  him. 

The  city  editor,  Joseph  Groome  —  to  the  older  reporters 
"Joe,"  and  the  rest  "  J.  G." — was  a  tall,  kindly,  patient 
Irishman,  whom  Felix  liked  better  than  any  one  else  about 
the  office,  and  toward  whom  he  felt  a  real  loyalty.  He 
was  particularly  patient  with  Felix's  first  mistakes,  and 
spared  no  pains  in  making  his  instructions  sufficiently 
minute  whenever  anything  beyond  Felix's  experience  came. 
With  such  a  tutor,  Felix  did  not  mind  admitting  his  ig 
norance  of  nearly  everything  in  the  actual  world  which  an 
enterprising  young  man  ought  to  know,  such  as  the  names 
of  the  prominent  people  in  town,  and  the  location  of  various 
public  buildings,  churches  and  hotels.  .  .  . 

The  owner  of  the  paper,  Mr.  Rosenthal,  Felix  saw  occa 
sionally  going  to  and  from  his  private  office.  He  was  a 
spick-and-span  little  Jew,  with  a  nervous  manner,  and  cold 
eyes.  Everybody  about  the  office  seemed  to  fear  him  a 
little. 

The  managing  editor,  Hastings,  was  Rosenthal's  execu 
tive;  he  was  kept  very  busy  writing  the  editorials  he  was 
told  to  write  and  carrying  out  the  other  wishes  of  his 
superior,  and  was  seldom  seen. 

Felix  congratulated  himself  in  secret  that  he  had  more 
ability  than  any  of  the  lot  of  them.  He  burned  for  an  op 
portunity  to  show  what  he  could  do.  He  was  especially 
annoyed  that  Vincent  should  be  the  one  to  write  about 
plays.  And  when,  during  his  second  week,  a  Shaw  play 
came  to  town,  and  Vincent  sneered  at  it  with  his  ignorant 
flippancy,  Felix  became  desperate.  If  only  he  had  a  chance 
to  write  about  plays  ! 

"  Speaking  of  Shaw,"  said  Franz,  when  Felix  complained 
of  these  matters  to  him,  "  there  is  a  second  or  third-rate 
German  Shaw  at  the  Deutsches  Theatre  this  week.  Don't 
you  want  to  come  to  see  it?  We  are  going,  and  you  can 


Vistas  251 

come  along.  We'll  tell  you  enough  about  what  is  going  on 
so  that  you  can  follow  the  action." 

Felix  went.  The  German  dramatist  appeared  to  him  to 
be  rather  a  fourth  or  a  fifth-rate  Shaw.  But  as  he  sat 
there,  listening  to  speeches  he  could  not  understand,  and 
forced  to  reflect  upon  the  theme  of  the  play  for  entertain 
ment,  there  came  to  his  mind  the  words  in  which  one  would 
write  about  this  play  —  if  one  were  writing  about  it.  And 
by  the  end  of  the  performance,  he  had  his  article  fully 
composed  in  his  thoughts.  He  hurried  home,  and  wrote  it 
down.  The  next  morning  he  copied  it  on  the  typewriter  at 
the  office,  and  then,  with  malicious  intent,  snowed  it  to 
Vincent. 

He  had  discussed  the  theme  of  the  play  eloquently,  and 
adverted  to  its  inadequate  treatment  only  in  a  few  glancing 
phrases.  He  had  intended  it  as  a  rebuke  to  Vincent's 
greenroom  gossip  Muse.  But  Vincent  did  not  know  this. 
He  read  it  through  with  interest.  "  That's  not  a  bad  piece 
of  writing,  you  know,"  he  said.  **  Why  don't  you  put  in 
a  little  about  the  actors  and  hand  it  in  to  J.  G.  ?  " 

"  But  I  didn't  intend  it  for  the  paper !  "  said  Felix. 

"That's  all  right.  But  the  Dutchies  will  be  pleased  to 
have  some  notice  taken  of  their  affairs.  And  you  needn't 
be  afraid  of  butting  in  on  my  field.  I  don't  understand 
German.  If  it's  all  right  with  J.  G.,  it's  all  right  with  me. 
Go  to  it,  and  become  our  German  drama  expert !  " 

Felix  did  not  explain  that  he  did  not  understand  German 
either.  He  followed  Vincent's  advice,  and  put  in  something 
about  the  actors  and  actresses,  and  handed  it  to  J.  G. 
"  Good  stuff !  "  said  J.  G.  "  You  can  do  this  next  week  too, 
if  you  want  to." 

Felix  reflected  with  some  amazement  that  the  witty  Social- 
sm  of  his  article  —  for  so  he  conceived  it  —  was  good  stuff 
jecause  there  was  a  large  German  population  in  town  who 
vere  flattered  by  attention  to  their  stock-company.  As  long 
is  he  said  a  few  nice  things  about  the  actors,  he  could 


252  Moon-Calf 

preach  whatever  he  wanted  to  —  pretending,  of  course, 
that  he  was  describing  the  play.  A  devious  affair,  journal 
ism.  But  interesting! 


XXXI  People 


ONE  of  the  most  interesting  things  about  newspaper 
work  was   the   opportunity  it  gave    for   meeting 
people.     Even  the  hotel-clerks,  the  cashier  at  the 
Second  National  Bank,  some  of  the  lawyers  on  his  **  run," 
the  weather  observer  at  the  postoffice,  the  cranky  old  post 
master  himself,  the  red-headed  undertaker,  were  persons  of 
curious  and  entertaining  personality.     And  every  day  some 
one  new ! 

He  went  back  with  pleasure  to  his  impressions  of  the 
young  Rabbi  whom  he  had  interviewed  that  first  week  on 
the  paper.  It  would  be  a  pity  not  to  follow  up  what  prom 
ised  to  be  an  interesting  acquaintance.  The  Rabbi  had 
seemed  to  like  him.  What  excuse  could  he  find  for  going  to 
see  him  again  ? 

Of  course,  he  might  go  to  hear  him  preach.     But  prob 
ably  his  sermons  would  be  —  sermons. 
At  any  rate,  it  would  be  worth  while  finding  out. 
He  went  to  the  synagogue  the  next  Friday  night.     The 
young  Rabbi's  sermon  was  one  of  a  series  dealing  with  con- 
Tasting  types  of  Jewish  character,  from  Spinoza  down  to 
nore  frivolous  personalities.     This  time  the  subject  hap- 
>ened  to  be  Heine  —  one  of  Felix's  particular  enthusiasms. 
And  yes,  it  was  true  —  the  Rabbi  did  retain  in  the  pulpit, 
istonishingly  enough,  the  qualities  of  quick  and  free  intel- 
igence  which  made  his  private  conversation  so  delightful. 
Remembering  his  experience  with  the  German  play,  Felix 
/rote  a  column  report  of  the  sermon,  and  submitted  it  with 
iffidence  to  the  city  editor. 

J.  G.  raised  his  eyebrows.     His  reporters  were  not  in  the 
abit  of  going  out  of  their  way  to  report  sermons.     But, 

253 


254  Moon-Calf 

like  the  dramatic  criticism,  '*  religious  news "  was  a  good 
feature,  and  he  printed  Felix's  story. 

The  next  Friday,  when  Felix  appeared  at  the  synagogue 
again,  the  Rabbi  stopped  beside  him  before  the  services 
began,  and  congratulated  him  upon  it. 

"  Newspaper  work,"  the  Rabbi  went  on  to  say,  quite  as  if 
he  and  Felix  were  all  alone  and  he  was  not  going  to  ascend 
the  pulpit  in  three  minutes,  "  is  the  best  possible  apprentice 
ship  for  a  young  writer.  And  Port  Royal  is  one  of  the 
best  possible  towns  in  which  to  serve  such  an  apprentice 
ship,  I  think.  Did  you  grow  up  here?  —  no?  Then  you 
can  realize  clearly  the  difference  between  this  and  most 
other  cities  of  its  size  in  the  Middle  West.  Port  Royal  has 
a  quality  of  its  own.  I  suppose  this  is  partly  due  to  the 
pioneers  from  New  England,  who  brought  with  them  ideals 
and  a  respect  for  learning;  but  it  is  more  due,  I  think,  to 
the  Germans,  who  left  home  because  they  loved  liberty,  and 
brought  with  them  a  taste  for  music,  discussion  and  good 
beer.  There  are  so  many  of  the  Germans,  and  they  have  so 
much  enthusiasm,  that  they  dominate  the  town.  And  for 
some  reason  they  are  not  as  solemn  and  stodgy  as  Germans 
often  are  —  perhaps  because  of  a  slight  but  pervasive  Flem 
ish  strain.  Their  robust  mirth  fulness  is  extraordinarily  like 
the  scenes  in  Flemish  paintings.  At  all  events,  their  influ 
ence  has  stamped  the  town  with  its  own  flavour.  It  is 
true,  they  have  never  been  able  to  convert  the  descendants 
of  New  England  to  gymnastics  and  choral  singing ;  but  the) 
have  laid  out  these  magnificent  parks,  and  built  our  librar) 
—  which,  you  will  have  noticed,  is  well  stocked  with  free- 
thought  literature.  .  .  .  But  I  must  be  going  to  my  pulpit 
Wait  for  me  when  the  services  are  over,  and  we'll  go  to  nr 
house  and  talk.  My  wife  will  make  us  some  sandwiches 
and  we'll  have  some  beer,  and  get  really  acquainted." 

2 

Felix  was  astonished  as  well  as  flattered.     He  had  neve 
expected  to  drink  beer  with  a  clergyman.     But  that  touc 


People  255 

put  him  completely  at  his  ease  —  as  perhaps  it  was  intended 
to  do.     On  the  way  home,  the  Rabbi  took  up  the  subject 
of  Port  Royal  again.     "  You  will  have  noticed  that  the  town 
has  a  somewhat  metropolitan  atmosphere.     Or,  at  least,  it  is 
less   puritanical   than   the   ordinary   American   town.     By 
puritanical  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  good  —  I  mean  hypo 
critical.     Port  Royal  does  not  hide  its   vices;   in  fact,   it 
does  not  regard  them  as  vices.     I  imagine  that  the  sight  of 
our  Germans  taking  their  women-folk  and  children  along 
with  them  to  their  drinking  places,  as  though  it  were  not 
really  wicked  to  drink,  has  broken  down  the  more  primitive 
modes  of  American  intolerance.     And  their  other  habit  of 
stating  their  desires  (such  as  the  desire  for  beer  on  Sunday) 
in  the  form  of  philosophical  theories  (such  as  the  theory  of 
personal  liberty)  has  resulted  in  a  general  readiness  to  be 
lieve  that  ideas  are  matters  of  real  importance.     The  effect 
}f  all  this  has  been  to  give  Port  Royal  a  somewhat  Euro- 
Dean  air.     My  wife  says  I  romanticize  about  Port  Royal; 
perhaps  I  do !     I  like  the  town.     I  suppose  you  know  about 
ts  past?     In  the  great  days  of  river-traffic  it  was  a  Pleas- 
ire  City,  famous  all  over  the  Mississippi  region.     It  has  a 
ong  record  of  defiance  of  laws  passed  by  the  puritanical 
;tate  legislature,  and  more  than  once  the  state  militia  has 
)een  sent  to  enforce  obedience.     Just  a  few  years  ago  the 
egislature  passed  a  law  forbidding  prize-fights,  and  Port 
^oyal   kept   on  having   them.     So   finally   a   company   of 
armer-boys  with  bayonets  was  sent  to  prevent  the  big  bout 
•etween  Burns  and  Mitchell.     They  marched  into  the  Coli- 
eum  —  and  were  told  that  it  was  all  right,  that  there  wasn't 
•oing  to  be  any  prize-fight,  just  a  little  boxing-match,  and 
hey  were  invited  to  take  ringside  seats.     They  did,  and 
nder  the  eyes  of  the  state  national  guard  sent  to  enforce 
he  law,  the  biggest  prize-fight  ever  held  in  the  state  was 
ulled  off !     We  are  a  little  tamed  now,  shorn  of  our  former 
lories,  but  still  quite  a  place  to  live.     I  am  sure  you  will 
nd  it  so." 
They  encamped  in  the  Rabbi's  little  parlour,  and  the  sand- 


256  Moon-Calf 

wiches  and  beer  speedily  appeared.  It  was  really,  Felix 
thought,  when  he  found  himself  seated  in  a  big  comfortable 
chair  in  front  of  the  Rabbi's  grate,  with  the  Rabbi's  wife, 
a  handsome  and  motherly  young  woman,  refilling  his  glass 
and  pressing  another  sandwich  upon  him,  while  he  and  the 
Rabbi  discussed  philosophy  and  politics  —  it  was  really  like 
an  evening  at  the  Vogelsangs ;  except  that  the  Rabbi  had  no 
such  airs  of  omniscience,  seeming  rather  to  have  great  re 
spect  for  Felix's  opinions.  But  there  was  another  differ 
ence:  the  Rabbi's  voice,  and  that  of  his  wife,  flowed  to  a 
different  tune,  one  more  suave  and  subtle  than  the  one  to 
which  he  was  accustomed.  He  found  himself  falling  easily 
into  their  manner,  except  at  times  when  in  his  anxiety  to 
make  a  point  he  relapsed  into  the  ruder,  brusquer  mode  of 
speech  which  he  realized  that  he  had  learned  in  the  branch 
meetings. 

3 

This  difference  was  still  more  marked  the  third  time  he 
came.  They  had  brought  with  them  from  the  synagogue  a 
young  married  woman,  not  a  member  of  the  congregation, 
but  a  friend  of  the  Rabbi's  who  had  come  to  hear  him  talk. 
"  About  a  third  of  my  audience,"  he  had  remarked  humor 
ously  to  Felix,  "  are  heretics  —  that  is  to  say,  Christians. 
You  have  doubtless  observed  the  earnest  efforts  I  make  to 
bring  them  back  to  the  true  faith."  Mrs.  Miller  was  a 
pretty  and  discontented  woman,  with  a  considerable  interest 
in  books,  and  a  sharp  and  rather  witty  tongue.  She  was 
discontented  with  the  whole  world,  but  more  particularly 
with  marriage.  That  is  to  say,  with  her  own  marriage. 
But  she  conveyed  this  latter  fact  through  generalizations 
transparent  enough  to  allow  one  to  deduce  the  particular 
which  she  really  had  in  mind,  and  witty  enough  to  make  the 
frank  revelation  devoid  of  any  offence.  Felix  was  amazed 
at  the  capacity  of  words  for  saying  so  much  while  appar 
ently  saying  so  little ;  no  one  could  have  gone  away  and 
said  that  Mrs.  Miller  was  complaining  of  her  husband's 


People  257 

stupidity;  and  yet  that  was  just  what  she  was  doing.  And 
Felix  was  pleased,  too,  at  being  included  in  the  circle  of  a 
confidence  however  tricked  out  with  humorous  innuendo. 
There  was  a  lightness  and  airiness  about  the  conversation 
which  he  had  never  come  across,  except  in  books;  and  it 
was  interesting  to  see  how  the  Rabbi  would  put  an  argu 
ment,  which  he  and  Felix  had  rehearsed  the  preceding  week 
in  heavy  philosophic  terms,  into  this  light  and  laughing 
kind  of  talk.  He  was  still  more  pleased  when,  at  his  first 
attempt,  he  found  himself  able  to  play  at  the  same  verbal 
game.  It  was  only  doing  in  talk  what  he  had  learned  by 
heart  in  books,  after  all ! 

When  he  began  to  talk,  as  it  were,  in  her  language,  Mrs. 
Miller  turned  her  attention  to  him,  and  as  if  to  test  his 
powers,  pressed  him  with  what  seemed  a  rapier-pointed  wit, 
apropos  of  some  remark  he  had  just  made  on  the  subject  of 
morals  from  what  he  considered  the  Socialist  point  of  view. 
He  had  spoken  of  candour  as  if  it  were  a  universal  panacea 
for  all  the  ills  of  the  troubled  soul.  And  she,  representing 
herself  as  the  protagonist  of  "  bourgeois  hypocrisy,"  at 
tacked  him  with  swift,  laughing  questions.  It  would  be 
easy  enough  to  answer  those  questions  in  solemnly  sociologi 
cal  phraseology;  but  he  understood  that  his  task  was  to 
translate  his  ideas,  if  he  could,  into  impromptu  Dolly  Dia 
logue.  And  so  he  fenced  with  her;  sometimes  she  pressed 
him  dangerously  near  the  edge  of  the  possibilities  of  speech, 
it  seemed  to  him ;  a  shade  more  and  he  would  be  brutally,  al 
most  indecently,  frank;  and  he  had  to  recover  himself  with  a 
sharp  double  entendre.  At  last  he  stumbled  upon  a  pun. 
Then  she  relented,  and  crossed  swords  with  that  more  ex 
perienced  swordsman,  the  Rabbi.  But  she  gave  him  a 
glance  of  appreciation,  of  admiration,  of  gratitude.  And 
he  felt  that  he  had  been,  quite  amazingly  contrary  to  any 
notions  he  had  ever  had  of  himself,  a  social  success. 


258 


Moon-Calf 


They  came  away  from  the  house  together,  and  he  accom 
panied  her  home. 

**  You  can  talk,"  she  said,  after  a  silence. 

"  When  I  have  some  one  to  talk  with,"  he  replied. 

Again  that  glance  of  appreciation,  now  edged  with  magic 
by  the  moonlight.  His  glance  met  hers,  and  responded 
to  it. 

"  You  mustn't  say  things  like  that  to  me,"  she  said  softly, 
and  he  knew  that  she  meant  his  look  and  not  his  words. 

"  I  can't  help  it  when  you  encourage  me,"  he  said. 

She  drew  her  cloak  around  her.  "  I  am  a  wicked  old 
woman,"  she  said.  *'  No,  don't  contradict  me.  But  for 
once  I  am  going  to  be  very,  very  good.  I  am  not  going  to 
invite  you  to  come  to  see  me." 

They  had  stopped  in  front  of  her  house,  and  she  held  out 
her  hand. 

"  Do  invite  me  to  come  to  see  you,"  Felix  urged  lightly. 

"  No,"  she  said.  "  We  will  see  each  other  at '  the  Rabbits  ' 
now  and  then  —  properly  chaperoned.  And  now  go  home." 
But  she  held  his  hand  for  a  moment  longer  than  need  be. 

Felix  understood  well  enough  what  game  they  were 
playing.  She  was  not  in  earnest,  nor  was  he.  They 
were  not  in  love  with  each  other,  and  never  would  be. 
They  were  just  playing.  Yesterday  he  would  have  scorned 
it  as  a  silly  bourgeois  game.  He  could  understand  why  she 
should  want  to  play  it.  She  did  not  love  her  husband,  and 
she  was  too  much  of  a  coward  to  seek  for  real  love.  But 
why  should  he  like  this  game?  He,  a  Socialist,  a  member 
of  the  intellectual  proletariat ! 

He  remembered  what  Franz  had  said  to  him :  '*  Perhaps 
you  are  only  a  descendant  of  a  broken-down  middle-class 
family,  and  you  will  go  back  where  you  belong."  Per 
haps  he  liked  this  game  because  he  was  really,  at  heart, 
bourgeois.  .  .  .  He  considered  that  idea,  and  then  thrust  it 
from  him.  No,  never! 


People  259 

But  the  fact  remained  that  he  really  did  like  to  play  this 
silly  game.  And  he  wanted  to  see  Mrs.  Miller  again — • 
very  soon.  His  new  life,  as  a  reporter,  meant,  he  reflected, 
that  he  could  be  free  to  see  such  people,  to  experiment  with 
life,  to  learn  what  he  himself  was  really  like.  .  .  . 

5 

But  next  morning  the  managing  editor  called  him  into  his 
office. 

"  Felix,"  he  said,  "  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you .  that  we  have 
decided  to  let  you  go.  Mr.  Rosenthal,  the  publisher,  who 
has  had  a  great  deal  of  newspaper  experience,  has  been 
watching  your  work,  and  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
you  will  not  be  a  success  as  a  newspaper  man.  I  tell  you 
this  quite  frankly,  because  you  do  not  want  to  waste  your 
time  in  doing  work  for  which  you  are  not  suited.  Mr. 
Rosenthal  thinks  you  are  not  sufficiently  enterprising  to 
make  a  good  reporter.  You  do  your  routine  work  very 
well,  but  you  do  not  seem  to  have  what  is  called  a  nose  for 
news.  I  am  sorry,  of  course.  You  will  have  the  regular 
two  weeks'  notice,  and  you  can  use  as  much  time  as  you 
please  in  looking  for  other  work.  I  am  sure  you  will  find 
something  more  congenial  —  and  I  wish  you  good  luck." 
He  shook  hands  with  Felix,  and  turned  back  to  his  desk  to 
finish  an  editorial. 


XXXII  Advice 


FLIX  went  down  the  stairs  pale,  gasping  for  breath, 
md  holding  on  to  the  banister  for  the  support  which 
lis  trembling  knees  were  hardly  able  to  give.  It 
was  as  if  he  had  been  struck  a  terrific  physical  blow.  For 
the  moment  he  was  not  thinking  at  all ;  and  when  he  reached 
the  street  he  burst  out  into  hysterical  laughter.  It  was  a 
spring-like  day  in  early  March,  and  he  went  to  a  little  park 
just  outside  the  business  section  of  the  town  and  sat  on  a 
bench  and  looked  at  the  dry  basin  of  the  little  fountain  and 
the  silly  nymph  who,  with  melting  snow  dripping  from  her 
shoulders,  insouciantly  poured  out  nothing  from  a  carven 
sea-shell. 

He  seemed  to  hurt  in  every  part  of  his  soul.  For  a  while 
he  sat  there,  only  suffering. 

Then  his  sick  egotism  began  to  rally.  His  first  emotion 
was  pity  for  himself.  He  saw  himself  going  back  into  a 
factory,  wearing  dirty  overalls,  doing  a  man's  work  for  a 
boy's  pay;  saw  himself  getting  up  at  dawn  and  trudging  to 
the  bleak  walls  of  his  imprisonment  —  and  coming  home, 
too  tired  to  think  or  write,  at  dark.  Glucose  and  bronze- 
dust  !  Was  this  what  he  was  condemned  to  ? 

Then  came  anger.  No !  he  said  to  himself.  He  had 
found  his  work,  and  he  would  do  it.  He  belonged  here, 
here  among  people  who  had  leisure  for  thought  and  talk. 
He  would  not  go  back.  He  would  not  go  back. 

Then  a  fierce  scornful  pride  possessed  him.  He  had  been 
fired  —  as  if  he  were  not  as  good  as  those  men  in  the  office, 
Vincent  and  Sells  and —  Why,  he  was  better  than  any  of 

260 


Advice  261 

them,  than  the  whole  lot  put  together.  What  was  the  mat 
ter  with  Rosenthal?  Was  he  crazy? 

Nevertheless  —  the  fact  was  that  he  was  fired. 

Of  course  he  might  go  to  the  other  paper  and  ask  for  a 
job.  But  being  fired  by  the  News  was  a  poor  recommenda 
tion.  They  would  not  take  him.  But  at  least  he  could  try 
it.  He  rose.  Now?  No  —  not  yet.  First  he  must  show 
these  fools  something.  .  .  . 

But  what  could  he  show  them?  What  more  could  he  do 
than  he  had  done  already?  What  did  they  want  of  him, 
anyway?  A  nose  for  news!  He  pondered  that.  Perhaps 
they  were  right,  in  a  way.  It  was  true  that  he  did  just 
what  he  was  told  to  do.  He  had  brought  in  nothing  by  his 
own  enterprise  —  except  sermons  and  alleged  dramatic  crit 
icism.  Sermons !  No  wonder  they  had  fired  him.  .  .  .  He 
was  not  a  reporter,  he  was  a  bookworm  —  as  much  out  of 
place  among  this  machinery  as  among  any  other  kind  of 
machinery.  Yes,  it  had  all  been  a  mistake.  Let  him  not 
imagine  vain  things.  What  was  the  use  to  think  of  "  show 
ing  them  "  anything  ?  What  was  the  use  to  try  ?  It  would 
be  foolish  to  hope,  because  it  would  only  mean  that  he 
would  be  hurt  again.  No,  he  would  take  the  managing 
editor's  advice,  and  spend  most  of  his  time  in  the  next  two 
weeks  looking  for  another  job.  .  .  .  Of  course  he  would 
not  find  anything;  but  that  would  be  better  than  feverishly 
trying  to  show  them  that  they  had  been  mistaken.  They 
had  shown  him.  .  .  .  All  right.  All  right. 

He  wanted  to  talk  to  some  one.  Franz?  No.  He  re 
membered  what  Franz  had  said.  "  Don't  come  here  com 
plaining  to  me  if  you  get  fired  in  a  month."  It  was  just  a 
month. 

How  did  Franz  know  ?  —  But  probably  anybody  could 
tell  to  look  at  him  that  he  would  be  a  failure.  Franz  had 
known. 

He  might  go  to  Franz  and  say,  "  Well,  you  were  right 
again." 

But  no,  he  would  not  do  that.     Franz  had  told  him  to 


262  Moon-Calf 

stay  away.  Yet  he  must  talk  to  somebody.  To  whom 
should  he  go?  Helen?  Never.  She  would  be  sorry  for 
him.  Then —  ? 

Why,  there  was  old  Wheels,  of  course.  He  had  com 
pletely  forgotten  about  old  Wheels.  He  had  not  seen  him 
since  that  night  on  the  Island.  He  would  go  to  see  Wheels. 
Good  old  Wheels !  He  felt  cheered. 


Wheels  was  making  himself  some  tea  on  a  little  stove  in 
the  back  of  his  place.  He  peered  at  Felix,  recognized  him, 
and  with  a  grunt  poured  another  cup  of  tea.  Then  he 
brought  out  from  a  cupboard  a  black  bottle.  **  In  honour 
of  the  occasion,"  he  said,  "  we  will  have  rum  in  our  tea," 
and  he  poured  a  little  in  each  cup,  and  cut  some  bread. 

Felix  flushed.  "  It's  true  I  have  not  been  here  for  a  long 
time,"  he  said. 

"  Don't  think  I  am  reproaching  you,"  said  Wheels.  "  I 
didn't  expect  you." 

"Why  not?"  Felix  demanded. 

*'  Because  you  are  young.  You  have  vast  possibilities 
for  happiness  —  for  what  I  call  the  mood  of  success.  You 
see  I  do  not  recognize  success  as  a  real  fact.  But  there  is 
a  mood  in  which  we  feel  successful,  and  are  consequently 
happy.  You  have  been  in  that  mood.  Naturally  you  had 
no  use  for  me.  Now  you  are  no  longer  in  that  mood.  So 
you  have  come  to  me.  I  welcome  you." 

He  passed  the  buttered  bread,  sprinkled  over  with  green 
snippings  of  chives.  Felix  bit  into  it  gratefully,  and  drank 
of  his  tea. 

"  Is  failure  also  only  a  mood  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  There  you  have  it !  That  is  the  cheering  aspect  of 
pessimism.  Yes,  failure  also  is  an  illusion.  Tell  me,  what 
has  happened  to  you  ?  " 

"  I  am  under  the  depressing  illusion  that  I  have  lost  my 
job,"  said  Felix. 

Wheels  Laughed,    "  A  particularly  absurd  illusion,"  he 


Advice  263 

said.  "  It  is  impossible  to  lose  your  job.  You  only  seem 
to  do  so.  The  fact  is  that  what  we  flatteringly  call  society 
insists  upon  our  working.  It  may  appear  for  a  moment  to 
relax  that  demand,  but  never  fear,  it  will  be  at  you  again. 
Even  if  you  try  to  unfit  yourself  for  work  by  drink  and 
drugs,  it  will  rummage  for  you  in  the  gutter,  take  infinite 
pains  to  put  you  in  working  shape  again,  and  insist  upon 
your  performing  some  of  the  idiotic  motions  which  conduce 
to  its  sense  of  collective  self-respect.  I  shouldn't  wonder 
if  presently  society  decided  to  abolish  drink  altogether,  be 
cause  it  interferes  with  work.  Not  that  I  should  mind ! " 

"  But  the  trouble  is,"  said  Felix,  "  that  the  idiotic  motions 
which  I  have  been  going  through  conduce  to  my  own  sense 
of  self-respect.  Since  I  last  saw  you,  I  have  changed  my 
occupation.  I  am  now  —  or  I  was  until  today  —  a  re 
porter." 

"  Not  bad,"  said  Wheels.  "  In  fact,  if  I  were  society,  I 
think  that  is  just  what  I  should  insist  upon  your  being.  I 
know  of  no  better  way  to  get  the  illusion  of  useful  work 
out  of  so  essentially  useless  a  person  as  a  poet.  I  would 
make  them  all  reporters.  And  now  I  understand  why  I 
have  read  my  News  with  less  boredom  for  the  last  few 
weeks.  Did  you  write  that  very  amusing  account  of  Fulda's 
play?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix,  "  did  you  like  it?  " 

*'  The  philosophy  was  all  wrong,  of  course.  You  have 
evidently  become  a  Socialist  since  I  saw  you  last." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix  mischievously,  "  I  paid  my  dues  with 
that  five  dollar  bill  you  gave  me." 

"  I  should  call  that  a  misappropriation  of  funds,"  said 
Wheels.  "  Don't  tell  me  you  gave  it  all  to  the  Socialists !  " 

"  No  —  I  spent  part  of  it  on  a  pretty  girl  there  in  the 
park.  Your  mone^^r^iryrl ,  r^  .fl.  In^j  tTrnHinnidifffiinrT, 
and  beer  for  tne  rrrtwri— •Tli'al'uhuuld  satisfy  you." _, 

For  answer  Wheels  took  from  hispocket  a  little  account 
book,  in  which  he  gravely  set  down  those  items.  "  That 
comes  to  only  about  two  dollars,  as  I  figure  it,"  he  said. 


264  Moon-Calf 

"  You  owe  me  three  dollars.  Do  not  think  for  one  moment 
that  I  am  going  to  have  it  on  my  conscience  that  I  helped 
finance  a  pernicious  organization  like  the  Socialist  party. 
Think!—" 

His  voice  lowered  to  an  ironic  whisper.  "  Illusions  are 
sometimes  very  real.  The  Socialists  want  to  make  a 
better  world.  Suppose  —  suppose  they  should  appear  to 
succeed !  " 

"  A  world  of  beauty  and  joy !  "  suggested  Felix. 

"  And  I  —  fat  and  colour-blind  and  tone-deaf !  No,  I 
can  live  in  the  world  as  it  is  with  some  satisfaction.  I 
have  my  philosophy.  But  what  use  would  my  philosophy 
be  in  such  a  world  as  you  threaten  me  with  ?  —  Give  me 
that  three  dollars !  " 

"  Nothing  doing,"  said  Felix.  "  You  gambled  with  that 
money.  And  part  of  it  you  lost.  What  I  gave  to  the 
Socialists  helped  them,  in  fact,  to  hold  the  convention  at 
which  a  Socialist  was  nominated  for  Congress  who  polled 
the  biggest  Socialist  vote  ever  cast  in  this  state.  Take  that !  " 

"  H'm,"  said  Wheels.  "  Do  you  refer  to  Fred  Hutter?  " 
A  vast  malicious  smile  spread  over  his  fat  face.  "  Then  the 
ironic  destinies  are  with  me  after  all.  Fred  Hutter  is  not 
a  Socialist.  I  happen  to  know  him.  He  is  a  more  amusing 
type  of  fanatic.  He  is  an  Anarchist.  Or  used  to  be. 
There  were  no  Anarchists  in  Port  Royal,  so  he  joined  the 
Socialist  camp.  Just  as  he  joined  a  trade-union — for  his 
own  purposes. —  Evidently  you  have  not  read  your  own 
paper  this  afternoon  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Then  I  can  tell  you  something.  At  the  time  you  nomi 
nated  Fred  Hutter  to  Congress,  he  had  other  fish  to  fry. 
He  was  frying  them.  And  that  nomination  served  to  bring 
his  quiet  activities  to  the  light.  Perhaps  the  newspapers 
are  mistaken.  Perhaps  it  is  what  you  call  a  '  capitalist  plot.' 
But  I  think  that  what  you  did  by  your  nomination  was  to 
put  a  noose  about  Fred  Hutter's  neck." 

He  had  picked  up  the  paper  from  the  floor,  and  with  the 


Advice  265 

same  broad,  malicious  grin  held  it  up  for  Felix  to  see  the 
headlines. 

SOCIALIST  ARRESTED 
AS  DYNAMITER 

Fred  Hutter,  Structural  Iron  Worker 

and  Candidate  for  Congress 

Indicted  in  Farrington 

Charged  with  Blowing  Up  Non-Union 

Bridge  Last  July  —  Grand 

Jury  Bares  Plot 

Felix  took  the  paper  with  trembling  fingers,  and  read  the 
story  underneath.  Then  he  turned  to  Wheels.  "I  —  I 
helped  to  nominate  him,"  he  said. 

Wheels  poured  out  another  cup  of  tea,  and  measured 
some  rum  into  it,  then  handed  it  to  Felix.  "  Never  mind," 
he  said.  "  You  only  thought  you  did.  It  wasn't  you,  my 
boy  —  it  was  the  ironic  destinies.  But  all  the  same,  you 
shouldn't  have  given  my  three  dollars  to  the  Socialists  —  it 
was  bound  to  bring  them  bad  luck." 

Felix  took  out  some  money  and  shoved  it  across  the  table 
to  Wheels. 

"  Take  it  back,"  he  said. 

"  Thanks,"  said  Wheels.  "  And  now  I'll  tell  you  some 
thing  else.  The  Record  prints  the  fact  that  Fred  Hutter 
was  expelled  from  the  Socialist  party  by  the  state  executive 
committee  last  night,  for  advocating  direct  action  and  saying 
that  political  parties  were  useless.  Just  in  time,  as  it  hap 
pened.  Your  Socialist  party  is  safe  enough  —  and  why 
should  you  care  what  happens  to  an  Anarchist  ? "  He 
laughed.  "  We  live  in  a  world  of  chaos  and  accident.  Poli 
ticians  think  they  can  tame  that  chaos.  They  are  fools. 
Dreamers  are  the  only  wise  ones.  They  know  that  they  can 
take  fragments  here  and  there  out  of  the  chaos,  and  gild 
them  with  their  fancy,  until  they  become  shining  and  beau 
tiful.  There  is  no  other  beauty.  The  world  itself  is 
hideous.  You  cannot  do  anything  with  it.  But  you  can 


266  Moon-Calf 

dream  beautiful  dreams.  You  are  not  a  politician.  Leave 
that  to  the  fools.  You  are  a  poet." 

Felix  remembered  his  personal  misfortune  again.  "  Yes," 
he  said,  "  a  poet  who  has  lost  his  job." 

Wheels  rose.  "  I  am  in  the  mood  to  prophesy,"  he  said, 
smiling.  "  You  will  not  go  back  to  the  factory.  The  ironic 
destinies  have  other  uses  for  you.  Your  role  will  be  played 
up  in  the  sunlight.  It  is  not  the  intention  of  the  gods  to 
starve  you,  or  maim  your  body.  They  want  to  break  your 
heart,  and  tear  your  soul  to  pieces.  And  so  they  will  feed 
you  with  hope,  with  success,  with  power.  It  is  useless  for  me 
to  tell  you  not  to  believe  in  these  things.  You  will.  But 
from  time  to  time,  as  the  gods  afflict  you,  you  will  remember 
what  I  have  said,  that  beauty  exists  only  in  your  own 
dreams. 

"  Now  forget  this,  and  go  off  and  be  happy  !  " 


Felix  went  away,  still  shaken  by  the  Hutter  catastrophe. 
What  would  Central  Branch  do?  And  what  would  Franz 
Vogelsang  say?  .  .  .  But  as  the  image  of  Franz  rose  up 
before  him,  smiling,  powerful,  cynically  self-possessed,  he 
realized  that  he  had  been  unduly  alarmed.  He  knew  well 
enough  what  Franz  would  say.  .  .  .  He  could  see  the  meet 
ing  next  Friday  evening,  with  the  depressed  and  deploring 
faces  of  his  friends  and  enemies,  waiting  for  Franz  to  come, 
so  that  they  could  denounce  him.  He  would  be  late.  It 
was  a  trick  of  his.  They  would  think  he  was  afraid,  and 
they  would  say  things  they  would  be  sorry  for  afterward. 
He  would  come  in  the  middle  of  a  speech  by  one  of  Simp 
son's  partisans,  and  sit  down  and  light  a  cigar,  and  smile, 
and  smile,  as  he  listened.  And  when  everybody  was 
through  denouncing  him,  he  would  get  up  and  say,  *'  You 
are  fools  !  I  have  told  you  so  before,  many  times,  and  now 
I  must  tell  you  so  again.  You  believe  what  you  read  in  the 
newspapers."  And  so  on.  He  would  rehabilitate  Fred 
Hutter.  He  would  make  them  all  ashamed  of  themselves. 


Advice  267 

He  would  win  them  over,  as  he  always  did.  It  would  be 
his  greatest  triumph. 

The  meeting  would  end  with  Franz  elected  the  head  of  a 
committee  to  raise  funds  for  Fred  Hutter's  defence.  .  .  . 

Wheels  was  a  fool.  He  remembered  that  parting  proph 
ecy,  and  as  he  went  along  the  street  he  murmured,  "  Roman 
tic  rot ! " 

He  started  home.  u  The  ironic  destinies !  —  old  Wheels 
has  been  reading  Thomas  Hardy." 

He  turned  suddenly  and  went  back  to  the  office.  '*  Go  off 
and  be  happy !  —  philosophic  mush !  " 

He  went  in  and  drew  his  pay. 

"  At  least  I  have  two  weeks  more  of  a  clean-shirt  exist 
ence.  That's  that  much." 

There  was  in  his  mind  a  bitter  distaste  for  the  pretended 
omniscience  of  old  Wheels,  and  with  this  was  mingled  a 
:urious  dislike,  felt  for  the  first  time,  of  the  realistic  om- 
liscience  of  Franz.  He  did  not  want  to  go  to  Central 
Branch  next  Friday  to  share  Franz's  triumph.  That  garret 
Jtopia  had  somehow  lost  its  savour.  It  was  more  inter- 
:sting  to  live  in  the  real  world  in  which  one  lost  one's  job 
md  —  yes,  by  God !  —  fought  to  get  it  back. 

"  Damn  all  these  people  who  know  everything !  "  he  said. 


XXXIII  Accident 


THE  only  residue  of  the  emotional  states  through 
which  Felix  passed  between  Saturday  afternoon 
and  Monday  morning,  was  a  dull  discouragement. 
He  was  given  no  assignments,  apparently  with  the  idea  of 
leaving  him  free  to  look  for  other  work.  But  he  was  too 
hopeless  to  engage  in  any  such  efforts,  and  his  sense  of  habit 
led  him  through  his  accustomed  routine. 

At  the  undertaker's  he  found  Deems  Morgan.  "  I  hear 
you're  fired,"  said  Deems  cheerfully. 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix. 

Deems  turned  with  a  smile  to  the  red-headed  undertaker. 
'*  For  insulting  the  Jews  —  what  do  you  know  about  that ! " 

"For  what!"  said  Felix. 

"  Sure  —  don't  you  know  what  you  were  fired  for  ?  " 

'*  I  was  told,"  said  Felix  slowly,  "  that  it  was  for  incom 
petence." 

"  Incompetence  me  eye,"  said  Deems.  "  It's  something 
you  wrote  about  the  Jews;  and  old  Rosenthal  wouldn't 
stand  for  it.  I  got  that  at  the  Record  from  Parks,  and  he 
got  it  from  the  city  editor.  I  think  Groome  told  him.  Any 
way,  it's  straight." 

"  Impossible!  "  said  Felix. —  He,  accused  of  writing  some 
thing  insulting  about  the  Jews  !  "  Why,  it's  absurd  !  " 

But  Deems  was  sure  of  it.     "  You'll  find  out,"  he  said. 


Felix  went  on  to  the  railway  station.  So  that  was  th< 
sort  of  thing  they  were  telling  about  him!  But  why?  — 
Why?  He  simply  could  not  understand.  But  it  made  hin 
angry. 

268 


Accident  269 

It  was  his  anger  that  made  him  stand  aloof  in  the  station 
while  it  filled  up  with  the  outgoing  crowd,  and  wait  there 
motionless  until  the  train  had  come  and  gone,  without  mak 
ing  an  effort  to  get  anybody's  name.  But  the  action  had  a 
curious  effect  upon  him.  He  had  a  sense  of  leisure,  and  of 
power,  as  he  sat  there  idly  watching  the  crowd  —  instead  of 
scurrying  about  from  one  group  to  another  with  paper  and 
pencil.  *'  I  am  trying  out  Deems'  theory,"  he  said  to  him 
self.  "  I'll  loaf  on  the  job  today,  just  to  see  what  it  seems 
like." 

After  an  hour  or  two  he  strolled  into  the  office  "  to  re 
port."  He  had  nothing  whatever  to  show  for  his  morn 
ing;  but  he  was  surprised  to  find  himself  not  in  the  least 
ashamed.  Then  he  strolled  out  again.  He  spent  the  after 
noon  in  the  same  manner,  going  his  rounds  but  not  bother 
ing  about  whether  he  got  any  "  news  "  or  not. 

It  was  at  least  a  refreshing  experience,  and  the  next  day, 
indifferent  and  care-free,  he  walked  into  the  station  again, 
merely  looking  at  people.  He  went  back  to  the  office,  re 
ported  "  nothing  doing,"  and  went  home  for  his  mid-day 
meal.  He  had  not  told  Ed  and  Alice  that  he  was  fired ;  he 
would  put  that  off  as  long  as  possible,  to  spare  himself  their 
sympathy.  Alice  asked  him  how  the  work  was  going,  and 
he  answered  her  with  brazen  mendacity  that  it  was  going 
fine! 

And  yet  he  did  not  feel  as  though  that  were  a  lie.  .  .  . 

He  felt,  oddly  enough,  more  like  a  reporter  that  day  than 
ever  before! 

He  went  back  to  the  railway  station.  It  was  early,  and 
there  were  only  a  few  people  there.  But  one  group,  a 
mother  with  a  baby  in  her  arms  and  two  other  children  at 
her  side,  all  of  them  sickly  and  pale,  he  remembered  as  hav 
ing  been  there  that  morning.  Felix  looked  at  them  curi 
ously,  wonderingly.  He  looked  at  them  a  long  while.  Then 
he  went  up  to  the  woman. 

"  Have  you  had  anything  to  eat  today  ?  "  he  asked. 

An  hour  later  Felix  rushed  into  the  office  and  leaned  over 


270  Moon-Calf 

J.    G.'s   desk.     "I've   got   a   story,"   he    said   breathlessly. 
"  At  least,  a  sort  of  story.     Human-interest  stuff." 

J.  G.  smiled  at  his  enthusiasm  and  asked,  "  What  is  it?" 

Felix  told  him  in  half  a  dozen  sentences.  "  She's  going 
back  to  Brookfield,"  he  finished,  "  and  it's  only  forty  miles 
from  here,  and  I  thought  it  had  a  kind  of  local  interest  —  ?  " 

"  It  has,"  said  J.  G.  "  Hop  to  it.  You've  just  an  hour 
before  press-time." 

"  How  —  how  much  space  can  I  have  ?  " 

J.  G.  looked  at  him  gravely.     "  Seven  columns !  "  he  said. 

Thrilled,  Felix  ran  to  his  typewriter.  "  Seven  columns  " 
had  no  practical  meaning  —  nobody  could  write  seven  col 
umns  in  an  hour.  It  was  a  symbol  —  it  meant  *'  all  you 
can  write !  "  He  would  be  doing  well  if  he  wrote  a  column 
and  a  half.  But  the  phrase  was  an  accolade.  "  Seven 
columns ! "  He  had  brought  in  a  good  story.  .  .  . 

He  knew  every  word  of  the  story  that  he  meant  to  write, 
and  he  was  tapping  off  his  last  sentence  (a  sentence  that 
had  come  into  his  mind,  complete  down  to  the  last  comma, 
as  he  was  carrying  one  of  those  sick  children  to  the  train 
an  hour  before!)  — at  ten  minutes  over  the  dead-line,  with 
J.  G.  standing  at  his  shoulder  saying  '*  That's  all  —  give  me 
what  you've  got."  He  finished  that  preordained  sentence, 
surrendered  the  sheet,  and  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  ex 
hausted  and  happy. 

J.  G.  came  back,  and  stopped  by  his  desk  a  moment.  "  I 
always  suspected,"  he  said  in  a  quizzical  way,  "  that  all  you 
needed  was  a  little  interest  in  people,  to  make  you  a  good 
reporter." 

There  were  many  implications  in  that  remark.  It  sug 
gested  that  Felix's  newspaper  career  had  not  come  to  an 
end  after  all.  But  what  Felix  realized  most  fully  was  sim 
ply  that  J.  G.  had  praised  him.  He  did  not  even  realize 
how  mistaken,  in  a  sense,  the  praise  was.  "  Interest  in  peo 
ple  ! "  Felix  had  forgotten  the  woman,  forgotten  those 
death-shadowed  children,  forgotten  the  innocent  maniac  of 
a  husband  who  had  led  her  in  that  hopeless,  ridiculous, 


Accident  27 1 

tragic  quest  across  a  continent,  forgotten  her  infinite  pa 
tience  and  absurd  loyalty,  except  as  figments  of  the  dream 
which  he  had  just  recorded  upon  paper.  They  were  not 
real  to  him,  they  never  had  been  real  —  they  were  fig 
ures  he  had  created,  moving  helplessly  through  a  world  of  I 
blind  accident;  they  were  pathetic  with  the  lovely  pathos  off 
a  poem.  .  .  .  Yet  he  felt  as  he  had  never  felt  when  he  had! 
finished  a  poem  —  proud,  uplifted,  a  master  of  the  elusive 
shapes  of  dream. 
"  Anyway,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  I  have  shown  them !  " 

3 

It  was  easy  to  find  "human-interest  stuff."  He  had 
only  to  look  about,  with  a  mind  free  from  anxieties  and 
from  an  exacting  sense  of  duty,  and  follow  the  lead  of  his 
curiosity.  There  were  stories  everywhere!  He  turned  in 
one  or  two  every  day.  There  were  no  more  accolades,  and 
twice  J.  G.  cut  his  column  to  half  its  length.  But  he  knew 
that  he  had  "made  good."  And  before  the  week  was  over 
J.  G.  casually  said  to  him,  in  an  interval  when  the  others 
were  talking  loudly  at  the  other  side  of  the  room,  "  I 
suppose  you  know  you've  got  your  job  back?" 

Afterward  Felix  remembered  that  "  insulting  the  Jews  " 
rumour.  He  ought  to  ask  about  it.  But  it  seemed  too 
ridiculous  to  mention.  .  .  . 

But  toward  the  end  of  the  second  week,  Vincent  invited 
him  out  for  a  drink  after  a  paper  had  gone  to  press.  Fe 
lix  wondered  what  was  coming,  for  Vincent  had  the  air 
of  one  who  will  presently  confide  a  secret.  "  Felix,"  he 
said,  when  they  had  leaned  against  the  mahogany  bar,  *'  do 
you  remember  that  stuff  I  dictated  to  you  a  couple  of 
weeks  ago? " 

Felix  remembered.  Vincent  had  cut  his  right  forefinger, 
and  had  laboriously  pounded  out  his  stories  all  day  with 
his  left,  and  with  a  middle  finger  —  for,  like  everybody 
else  in  the  office,  he  used  only  two  fingers  in  typewriting. 
But  that  unaccustomed  middle  finger  would  not  hit  the 


272  Moon-Calf 

right  keys.  After  press  time  he  was  cursing  over  his  type 
writer  as  he  worked,  and  at  last  Felix  had  asked  him  if 
he  didn't  want  to  dictate  his  copy.  Vincent  had  acquiesced, 
and  Felix  had  taken  it  down  —  on  the  bottom  of  a  sheet 
containing  some  "  personals "  of  his  own,  and  with  his 
name,  as  the  custom  was,  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner. 
Vincent's  copy  was  only  two  slight  items  of  "  lodge-news." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix.  '4  Go  on !  "  One  of  those  items  had 
had  something  to  do  with  Jews.  .  .  . 

"  Well,  do  you  remember  that  stuff  about  the  B'nai 
Brith  excursion?  You  asked,  what's  the  B'nai  Brith,  and 
I  said,  a  benevolent  association  of  Jews.  Do  you  re 
member  ?  " 

"  Yes."     Evidently  —  but  — ! 

"  Well,  you  put  it  in  just  that  way  —  the  B'nai  Brith,  a 
benevolent  association  of  Jews.  I  saw  it  at  the  time,  but 
I  neglected  to  cross  it  out." 

Felix  saw  the  point  of  Vincent's  confession,  but  the  crime 
remained  a  mystery.  '*  Why  should  you  have  crossed  it 
out?"  he  asked. 

"  Because  it's  a  rule  of  the  office  not  to  call  a  man  a 
Jew.  Old  Rosenthal  thinks  it's  a  reflection  on  his  race. 
He  says,  you  don't  say  that  Michael  Dougherty,  an  Irish 
pedlar,  was  arrested  for  not  having  a  license,  why  should 
you  ring  in  the  Jew  —  Jew  —  Jew  all  the  time?  I  can't 
quite  see  why  it's  an  insult  to  call  a  Jew  a  Jew  —  but  he 
does.  I've  heard  him  go  on  about  it  to  J.  G.  I  ought  to 
have  known  better,  but  my  finger  was  hurting  me,  and  I 
"forgot." 

"  So  that's  why  I  got  fired?"  said  Felix. 

"  Sure.  I  understand  that  you  didn't  know  the  real 
reason,  so  I  thought  I'd  put  you  wise.  The  old  man  went 
up  in  the  air  when  he  read  it  in  the  paper,  and  when  he 
looked  the  thing  up  he  found  your  name  on  the  story. 
J.  G.  kind  of  stuck  up  for  you,  said  you  were  new  and  didn't 
know  any  better,  but  old  Rosenthal  said  he  didn't  think  you 
were  any  good  anyway.  But  it  was  nothing  but  that  Jew 


Accident  273 

stuff.  He  certainly  had  it  in  for  you.  He  kicked  like  a 
steer  when  J.  G.  insisted  on  your  being  taken  back.  But " 
• —  and  Vincent  tipped  up  his  glass  of  beer,  "  he  knows 
who  did  it  now.  Seeing  you'd  got  your  job  back,  I  didn't 
want  the  old  man  to  have  a  black  mark  against  you.  I  told 
him  today." 

'*  That's  fine  of  you,"  said  Felix.  "  I  suppose  there's  no 
danger  of  you're  getting  fired  for  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Vincent  winking  over  his  glass.  "  There 
ust  isn't.  Last  night  I  signed  a  contract  with  the  road 
:ompany  of  '  The  Girl  in  Pink,'  as  their  advance  agent, 
ind  I  leave  at  the  end  of  the  week.  Have  another  one  on 
ny  new  job !  " 

Felix  laughed.  So  the  absurdity  had  been  the  truth. 
Truly,  this  was  a  world  of  blind  meaningless  accident.  .  .  . 
5ut  what  did  it  matter,  so  long  as  one  rode  triumphant  on 
he  foaming  crest  of  chaos! 


Book  Four 
The  Cabin 


XXXIV  Education 


TWO  years  later,  Felix  was  still  a  reporter  on  the 
Port  Royal  News:  still  going  to  hear  the  Rabbi's 
sermons,  and  flirting  with  Mrs.  Miller  on  the  way 
home ;  and  still  going  to  Socialist  meetings.  Life  had  seemed 
to  slow  up ;  he  had  stopped  seeking  —  he  had  found  his  place, 
and  stayed  in  it. 

And  yet  there  had  been  changes.  He  had  become  the 
dramatic  critic  of  the  News,  and  he  was  getting  eighteen 
dollars  a  week.  Mrs.  Miller  had  insensibly  taught  him 
some  manners.  And  his  visits  to  the  Socialist  local  were 
only  occasional. 

He  was  not  quite  sure,  now,  that  he  was  really  a  Socialist. 
Ideas,  he  realized,  were  different  from  realities;  and  he 
was  living  in  the  real  world,  and  getting  along  very  well. 

He  rather  avoided  his  old  friend  Franz  Vogelsang. 
Perhaps  the  reason  was  that  he  had  adopted  something  — 
not  too  much  —  of  the  Franzian  manner :  the  air  of  amused 
omniscience,  the  habit  of  saying  with  crushing  finality 
some  truth  which  others  preferred  to  forget;  and  it  was 
more  agreeable  to  be  another  Franz  than  to  remain  Franz's 
disciple.  The  word  in  Port  Royal  for  this  kind  of  manner 
was  "  cynical " ;  it  startled,  made  an  impression,  and,  graced 
with  the  airs  of  gallantry  acquired  in  association  with  Mrs. 
Miller,  it  was  quite  an  agreeable  social  asset. 

Felix's  circle  of  friends  had  extended  somewhat  into  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  he  was  at  home  in  the  houses  of  the  friends 
of  his  friends.  Helen  had  gone  suddenly  to  another  town 
to  become  librarian  of  a  larger  library,  leaving  him  with  a 
sense  of  having  behaved  ungratefully  toward  her.  Emily 

277 


278  Moon-Calf 

Ross  had  gone  away  to  college.  Wheels  had  lost  his 
glamour.  Clavering,  the  poet,  had  long  since  gone  to 
Chicago.  And  Tom  Alden,  whom  Felix  had  seen  once  or 
twice  in  the  streets,  had  passed  on  absent-mindedly  without 
returning  Felix's  greeting.  His  new  friends,  however 
pleasant,  were  not  so  exciting  as  these  others  had  once  been. 
It  was  a  small  and  ordered  world  in  which  Felix  lived.  It 
centred  about  his  work  on  the  newspaper,  where  a  succes 
sion  of  small  triumphs  fed  his  egotism.  He  had  begun  to 
think  of  writing  a  novel,  and  at  home  in  the  evenings 
dreamed  over  a  collection  of  u  notes  "  which  as  yet  refused 
to  resolve  themselves  into  a  "  plot."  Ed  and  Alice  were 
a  kindly,  accustomed  and  unconsidered  background.  And 
for  the  rest,  his  ambition  seemed  to  find  full  scope  in  his 
friendships  —  particularly  in  the  tantalizing  and  amusing 
quasi-friendship  which  he  maintained  with  Mrs.  Miller. 


She  had  invited  him  to  her  home,  after  a  playful  descrip 
tion  of  it  which  was  a  warning  that  he  would  find  it  almost 
as  intolerable  as  she  did.  Her  husband  was  a  banker,  a  red- 
faced,  pufTy  man,  who  shared,  it  seemed,  no  interests  what 
ever  in  common  with  her.  And  Felix  was  at  first  startled, 
and  then  entertained,  by  the  insouciant  way  she  would  insult 
him,  saying,  "  Freddie,  go  and  read  your  paper  —  you 
wouldn't  understand  what  Felix  and  I  are  talking  about, 
anyway." 

It  was  true,  he  didn't  understand.  And  it  became 
an  amusing  game  to  conduct  such  conversations  before  him 
until  he  fled  from  sheer  boredom;  but  it  was  particularly 
amusing  to  flirt  with  her  —  in  abstruse  witticism  and  allu 
sion  —  before  his  eyes.  They  said  things  which  would  have 
shocked  the  poor  man  to  the  marrow,  if  he  had  understood ; 
they  declared  their  (assumed  for  the  occasion)  undying  and 
passionate  love  for  each  other,  before  him;  they  discussed 
him,  and  his  attitude  toward  their  imaginary  case,  and  what 


Education  279 

he  would  do  about  it  if  he  could  understand  what  they  were 
saying  at  this  very  minute ! 

"It's  a  good  thing,  L.  L.,"  he  would  say  afterwards,  "  that 
I  know  your  real  motives.  It's  not  that  you  like  stray 
young  men  so  much,  but  that  you  dislike  —  husbands." 
"  L.  L."  was  now  his  pet  name  for  her. 

It  was  amusing,  and  it  was  only  mildly  unsatisfactory,  this 
purely  verbal  love-making.  Perhaps  it  had  become  an  art 
too  precious  to  spoil  by  the  intrusion  of  reality ;  and  perhaps 
they  did  not  really  want  to  make  love  to  each  other.  Some 
times,  when  they  seemed  to  have  exploited  verbally  to  the 
last  degree  the  existing  state  of  their  relationship,  it  seemed 
inevitable  that  they  should  break  through  the  impalpable 
veil  which  separated  them ;  but  always  some  new  elaboration 
of  fancy  kept  them  there,  on  the  polite  edge  of  intimacy. 

Thus,  at  last  it  irked  Felix's  egotism  to  be  always  speak 
ing  of  kisses  and  never  getting  one ;  but  when  he  demanded 
the  kiss,  it  was  in  a  rondeau,  and  when  she  replied  in  a  re 
markably  pretty  villanelle,  the  delight  of  pursuing  this  epi 
sode  of  gallant  versification  contented  him,  and  he  wooed 
her  in  rhyme,  with  equivocal  responses  in  the  same  terms. 
He  soon  forgot  the  annoyance  which  had  spurred  him  to  his 
original  demand. 

They  were  still  versifying  about  that  kiss  nearly  a  year 
after  it  had  first  been  broached. 

But  one  night  as  they  were  walking  home  from  "  the 
Rabbits  "  in  the  August  moonlight,  she  suddenly  turned  to 
him  and  said,  "  Felix,  do  you  really  want  to  kiss  me?  " 

3 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  his  heart  fluttering. 

"  Of  course,"  she  said,  "  that  is  the  only  possible  reply  to 
such  a  question.  But  let's  be  honest.  I'll  start  it  by  re 
minding  you  that  I  am  thirty-five  years  old.  You  are 
twenty.  Why  should  you  want  to  kiss  an  old  woman  like 
me?  It's  perfectly  natural  that  I  should  encourage  you. 


280  Moon-Calf 

Women  allow  themselves  to  be  kissed  at  every  available  — 
and  intriguing  —  opportunity.  They  like  it.  But  they  don't 
take  it  seriously,  and  I'm  afraid  you  do.  You  would.  You 
don't  know  how  trivial  a  thing  a  kiss  is.  And  I  wouldn't 
want  to  disappoint  you." 

"  I  don't  think,"  said  Felix,  "  that  you  would  disappoint 
me." 

"  I  should  try  to,  Felix  —  in  self-defence.  It  would  be 
a  cold  and  clammy  kiss.  You  wouldn't  like  it.  Go  on  and 
find  some  nice  girl  of  your  own  age,  and  say  some  of  the 
things  to  her  that  you've  been  saying  to  me.  I've  taught 
you  to  make  love.  Go  and  practise  my  lessons,  and  then 
come  back  and  tell  me  that  I  was  a  good  schoolmarm.  I 
mean  it.  You  will  make  a  very  successful  lover,  I  think. 
Go!" 

"•No,"  said  Felix.  He  wanted  to  take  her  at  her  word. 
He  wanted  to  go.  He  was  afraid.  But  because  he  was 
afraid,  he  must  stay.  "  No,"  he  repeated,  and  stopped. 

They  were  in  the  shade  of  a  great  elm,  a  little  way  from 
her  house.  "  All  right,  then,"  she  said,  in  a  changed  voice, 
and  lifted  her  face  to  his.  They  kissed,  and  it  seemed  that 
she  became  a  little  girl,  and  clung  to  him,  shivering, 
trembling,  and  helpless.  And  yet  her  kiss  was  cold  —  cold 
and  shy  and  afraid.  For  a  moment  only,  it  seemed,  she 
really  yielded  her  lips  to  him,  and  then  she  pushed  him  away. 
-  They  walked  on.  "  That  was  a  foolish  thing  for  us  to 
do,"  she  said  sadly.  "  You  won't  write  any  more  poetry  to 
me,  Felix." 

4 

Felix  knew  that  that  was  true.  For  a  moment,  realiz 
ing  in  that  last  speech  of  hers  the  truest  emotion  that  had 
ever  been  expressed  between  them,  he  felt  like  a  child  who 
has  wantonly  broken  a  toy.  He  felt  ashamed  —  ashamed 
of  the  hypocrisy  which  was  making  him  pretend  that  he  had 
any  reason  to  break  that  toy.  He  wanted  to  take  her  hand 


Education  281 

and  say,  "  It's  true.  Let's  just  be  friends  again."  But  he 
couldn't.  It  was  as  if  he  must  not  admit  that  he  was  a 
child.  He  must  go  on  pretending  to  be  a  man  because  she 
was  a  woman.  .  .  . 

'*  I  forgot  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  masculine  pride," 
she  was  saying.  '*  Now  you'll  want  to  finish  your  conquest. 
If  you  only  knew  how  little  there  was  to  be  proud  of  in  that, 
Felix.  Women  yield  themselves  to  men  for  a  thousand 
reasons  —  in  pity,  or  in  curiosity,  or  in  sheer  boredom.  It's 
a  gift  not  worth  having.  You  merely  don't  know.  But 
you'll  find  out.  It's  not  so  hard  to  conquer  a  woman.  Have 
you  thought  of  that  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Felix. 

"  I  see  it's  no  use  arguing  with  you.  Our  pretty  play  is 
spoiled.  We  mustn't  see  each  other  any  more." 

"Why  not?" 

*'  Because.  You  know  perfectly  well  why  not.  You 
don't  love  me,  and  I  don't  love  you,  and  it  would  be  silly 
if  either  of  us  did.  But  if  we  see  each  other  any  more,  we 
shall  get  into  a  most  awful  mess.  I  hate  messes."  She 
shivered. 

"  Don't  be  afraid,"  said  Felix. 

*'  Thank  you.  But  I  know.  If  we  see  each  other  again, 
I  warn  you,  Felix,  I  shall  perhaps  not  refuse  to  kiss  you. 
Doesn't  that  terrify  you?  Well,  it  terrifies  me.  This  is 
going  to  stop  right  now." 

"  That  is  easy  to  say,"  protested  Felix.  "  But  you  forget 
that  you  invited  me  to  come  over  and  meet  some  friends  of 
yours  tomorrow  evening." 

"  I'm  glad  you  spoke  of  that.  Because  I  had  forgotten  to 
tell  you.  It's  off.  The  people  can't  come." 

"Can't  I  come?" 

"  No  —  you  can't.  Because  I  shall  be  absolutely  alone  in 
the  house  all  evening.  My  husband  is  out  of  town.  Don't 
come !  " 

And  she  ran  swiftly  toward  the  house. 


282  Moon-Calf 

Felix's  heart  sank.  She  would  be  alone.  He  would  have 
to  come.  <l  Don't !  "— -  That  meant,  "  I  shall  expect  you  !  " 
It  was  to  be  his  hour.  .  .  .  But  he  felt  strangely  unlike  a 
successful  lover  as  he  walked  home. 


XXXV  Reversion  to  Type 


EARLY  the  next  morning,  as  Felix  was  just  about  to 
leave  the  office,  a  man  came  in  and  asked  for  him. 
He  was  a  small,  stoop-shouldered  man,  whom  Felix 
had  seen  somewhere  before.  He  introduced  himself  as 
Wilfrid  Endicott.  He  wanted  to  see  "  Mr.  Fay  "  in  regard 
to  a  new  free-thought  society  which  was  just  being  formed. 
—  Then  Felix  remembered :  he  was  one  of  the  men  whom  he 
had  seen  in  the  meeting  in  the  "  Art  Gallery  "  four  years 
ago!  He  listened  gravely,  but  with  an  undercurrent  of 
amusement,  while  the  little  man  explained  the  purposes  of 
the  new  society.  He  made  a  note  or  two  on  his  pad,  but 
when  he  asked  further  questions,  it  appeared  that  the  organi 
zation  was  in  too  nebulous  a  stage  of  existence  to  warrant 
even  the  smallest  item  of  news.  He  tactfully  suggested  that 
Mr.  Endicott  keep  him  in  touch  with  the  affairs  of  the  so 
ciety,  and  when  there  was  an  election  of  officers  or  some 
thing,  he  would  be  glad  to  run  a  little  story  about  it.  Until 
then  — 

Mr.  Endicott  hunched  his  chair  a  little  nearer  to  Felix's 
desk,  and  his  voice,  already  modulated  to  the  discreet  tone 
in  which  one  speaks  of  treasons,  stratagems  and  spoils,  sank 
to  a  hoarse  whisper.  "  I  thought  —  that  is,  we  thought  — 
:hat  you  yourself  would  be  interested  in  the  organization. 
You  could  be  of  a  great  deal  of  assistance  to  us,  of  course, 
[f  you  would  care  to  attend  our  first  meeting — " 

Felix  smiled,  and  shook  his  head.  His  smile  was  indul 
gent,  as  for  the  follies  of  youth.  How  far  away  and  long 
.go  did  that  meeting  at  the  "  Art  Gallery  "  seem !  And  that 
everish  hunt  for  the  Socialist  meeting-place!  Yes,  those 

283 


284 


Moon-Calf 


were  interesting,  if  rather  pathetic,  days ;  but  they  were  over. 
Attending  "  free-thought "  meetings,  save  as  a  matter  of 
gathering  news,  was  not  a  part  of  his  present  program.  He 
turned  to  his  visitor. 

"  I  used  to  attend  meetings  all  the  time,"  he  said  laugh 
ingly.  "  I  guess  I  attended  so  many  of  them  that  I  surfeited 
myself.  Anyway,  I  can  hardly  bear  to  go  into  a  hall  any 
more.  It's  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  for  me  to  do. 
I'd  rather  not." 

Mr.  Endicott  rose.  "  I'm  sorry,"  he  said.  "  Some  of  our 
members  thought  you  would  be  interested.  Mr.  Alden  — 
Mr.  Thomas  Alden  —  suggested  your  name." 

+'Tom  Alden?" 

"Yes.  Mr.  Thomas  Alden,  the  writer.  He  was  very 
anxious  that  you  should  be  notified  of  the  meeting.  He 
said  he  would  come  and  see  you  about  it  himself  if  I  didn't 
have  time.  He  told  us  we  could  count  on  you  absolutely 
as  a  member." 

"  Tom  Alden !  "  Felix's  mind  went  back  to  those  old  days 
when  he  had  briefly  —  and  all  too  slightly  —  known  Tom 
Alden.  He  had  never  let  himself  know  how  much  he  had 
liked  Tom  Alden ;  because  it  was  so  obvious  that  Tom  cared 
nothing  about  him.  He  had  really  been  hurt  when,  after 
ward,  Tom  had  passed  him  with  unseeing  absent-minded 
eyes,  in  the  street.  He  had  dismissed  Tom  as  part  of  an 
episode  in  his  past  life,  in  which,  as  he  remembered  it,  he 
himself  had  cut  a  rather  absurd  and  pitiful  figure.  .  .  . 
But  now  that  Tom  remembered  him,  he  realized  that  he 
wanted  to  see  Tom  Alden  again  very  much. 

"When  is  the  meeting?     I  think  I'll  drop  in,"  he  said. 

"  Tonight."  And  Mr.  Endicott  gave  him  the  address. 
"  We  will  meet  to  organize  in  my  house,"  he  said  apolo 
getically.  "  Later,  when  we  find  out  how  many  members 
we  have,  we  can  make  proper  provisions.  .  .  ." 

He  was  gone,  and  Felix  looked  after  him,  seeing  ir 
memory  the  tall,  kindly  figure  of  Tom  Alden. —  But  tonight 
He  had  forgotten;  in  spite  of  an  almost  sleepless  night  o: 


Reversion  to  Type  285 

anticipation  and  grim  resolve,  he  had  forgotten !     Tonight 
was  L.  L.'s. 

And  into  his  mind  there  flashed,  like  an  excuse  for  escap 
ing  an  unwilling  duty,  the  memory  of  her  last  words  the 
night  before.  "  Don't  come !  "  He  smiled  grimly.  "  It 
would  serve  her  just  right  if  I  didn't! "  he  said  to  himself. 
Nevertheless,  of  course  he  would  go.  There  must  be  some 
way  to  reconcile  this  conflict  of  engagements.  He  might  go 
early  to  Mrs.  Miller's  (she  was  Mrs.  Miller  in  his  mind  now, 
and  not  L.  L.)  and  then  go  — 

Oh,  how  ridiculous!  He  had  got  it  twisted.  He  meant 
that  he  could  go  early  to  the  meeting,  and  get  away  in  time 
to  call  on  Mrs.  Miller.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  calling  on  her  so 
late  as  that  was  not  exactly  practicable.  Suppose  he  'phoned 
to  her  and  suggested  that  they  go  to  the  meeting  together? 
The  idea  appealed  to  him,  though  he  realized  faintly  that 
there  was  an  element  of  the  preposterous  in  it.  Well, 
then  — 

But  before  he  could  solve  the  problem,  he  had  to  turn  his 
attention  to  an  assignment.  And  in  spite  of  some  confused 
thought  upon  it  from  time  to  time  during  the  day,  it  was 
still  unsolved  when  the  hour  came  to  go  —  either  to  the  meet 
ing,  or  to  Mrs.  Miller's. 

Fortunately,  the  same  street  led  past  Mrs.  Miller's  to  the 
meeting  place,  so  he  was  not  obliged  to  make  an  instant 
choice.  "  If  I  go,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  she'll  have  a  house- 
full  of  people  there.  It  will  be  just  like  her.  And  it  would 
serve  me  right,  for  being  such  a  fool."  But  he  would  go 
just  the  same.  He  could  explain  to  Tom  Alden  afterward. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  be  at  this  meeting.  And 
anyway,  he  hated  meetings.  It  would  be  sure  to  be  a  bore. 
Probably  Tom  Alden  would  think  better  of  it  and  stay  away, 
himself.  He,  Felix,  was  not  interested  in  "  free-thought." 
He  had  had  enough  of  that  sort  of  thing.  It  was  all  foolish 
ness.  What  was  Tom  Alden  doing,  getting  himself  mixed 
jp  in  that  stuff?  What  had  Tom  been  doing  all  this 
ime?  He  had  not  published  anything  since  that  first  book 


286  Moon-Calf 

of  his.  Would  his  wife  be  there  with  him?  Felix  had 
never  quite  liked  her.  But  —  what  was  it? — some  faint 
memory  of  a  remark,  heard  a  year  ago  — "  the  Aldens  don't 
get  along  very  well."  In  fact  hadn't  Mrs.  Miller  intimated 
something  about  a  separation?  Curious.  .  .  .  Certainly 
they  had  seemed  fond  enough  of  each  other  three  years 
ago.  .  .  . 

He  remembered  how,  each  of  the  two  times  he  had  gone 
to  see  Tom  Alden,  he  had  been  kept  in  the  drawing-room  for 
half  an  hour  each  time,  Mrs.  Alden  entertaining  him  while 
Tom  "  finished  a  chapter."  She  had  the  air  of  guarding 
him.  Felix  had  rather  resented  it.  If  Tom  Alden  was 
busy,  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  go,  and  come  again  some 
other  time.  But  no,  he  could  be  seen  in  half  an  hour. 
Felix  had  wondered  how  she  could  know  that  he  would  be 
ready  to  quit  work  in  half  an  hour.  But  she  was  brilliantly 
certain  of  her  ground.  She  had  promised  to  produce  him 
in  a  certain  time,  and  when  the  time  was  up,  she  went  and 
got  him.  He  came  in,  apparently  a  little  bewildered,  and 
Felix  was  made  still  more  embarrassed  by  the  conviction 
that  he  had  been  wrenched  away  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 
But  Tom  Alden's  wife  had  no  such  fears.  She  was  the 
guardian  of  his  sacred  labours  —  that  was  plain.  If  Tom 
Alden  had  little  or  nothing  to  say  in  reply  to  Felix's  feverish 
attempts  to  make  conversation,  then  it  must  have  been  Felix's 
fault.  She  would  stay  a  minute  or  two,  and  then  go  away 
saying,  "  Now  I  will  leave  you  two  together  to  talk."  It 
was  a  precious  interval,  and  they  must  make  the  most  of  it  — 
Tom  Alden  in  giving  literary  aid  and  comfort,  and  Felix  in 
receiving  it.  The  only  trouble  was,  they  found  they  had 
nothing  to  say  to  each  other! 

Well;  so  it  had  happened.  He  had  liked  Tom,  too.  It 
would  be  nice  to  see  him  again ;  and  perhaps  this  time  they 
could  hit  it  off  a  little  better.  That  is,  if  Tom  were  really 
on  hand  at  that  meeting.  Which  of  course  implied  that  he, 
Felix,  would  also  be  on  hand.  Well,  he  could  come  late  — 
that  is,  early.  .  .  .  No,  damn  it,  he  couldn't  come  at  all. 


Reversion  to  Type  287 

Not  to  the  meeting.  He  was  going  to  Mrs.  Miller's.  To 
L.  L.'s.  Yes.  Tonight  — 

He  pulled  up  short,  realizing  that  he  had  gone  three 
blocks  beyond  Mrs.  Miller's  house. 

He  whirled  on  his  heel,  looked  back,  turned,  and  looked 
forward.  Then,  with  an  awkward  laugh  and  a  great  sense 
of  relief,  he  strode  on  toward  the  meeting. 

"  I  hope  she  waits  —  and  waits  —  and  waits,"  he  said  to 
himself  vindictively. 

(But  Mrs.  Miller  didn't  wait  and  wait  and  wait;  she  had 
strolled  over  to  the  Rabbits,  where  she  thought  Felix,  after 
knocking  on  her  door,  would  probably  come  too  —  and  the 
game  would  go  on  indefinitely.  She  liked  Felix  —  in  a  ver 
bal  way  —  very  much;  and  if  she  couldn't  get  some  more 
poems  out  of  him,  then  it  would  mean  that  she  was  really 
getting  old!) 


A  dozen  assorted  free-thinkers  sat  around  the  large  dinner- 
table  in  the  Endicott  home.  And  Tom  Alden  was  among 
them.  Coffee  and  cakes  were  served,  and  various  people 
said  various  things.  Felix  at  first  was  scornful,  and  a  little 
puzzled  by  the  presence  of  Tom  Alden  there  among  those 
people.  That  was  during  the  first  ten  minutes.  For  those 
first  ten  minutes  he  was  Felix  Fay,  the  young  reporter  of  the 
Port  Royal  News.  But  presently,  without  realizing  it,  he 
ceased  to  be  that  enterprising  and  realistic  person,  and  be 
came  another  Felix  Fay  —  the  incorrigible  Utopian. 
Dreams,  long  repressed,  began  to  flower  in  his  mind.  He 
forgot  to  despise  these  people,  he  became  one  with  them  in 
their  hopes  and  plans. 

But  there  was  something,  nevertheless,  about  the  talk  that 
evening  that  he  did  not  like ;  and  at  last,  when  he  was  called 
jpon  for  his  opinion,  he  said :  "  I  don't  want  to  fight  old 
Battles.  The  struggle  for  free  thought  has  been  waged  and 
von.  The  question  now  is,  what  shall  we  think?  You 
;peak  of  Science,  of  Darwinism,  of  Evolution;  and  you  seem 


288  Moon-Calf 

to  me  to  be  speaking  of  the  theory  that  the  earth  is  round. 
Let  us  stand  for  some  theory  that  has  a  challenge  in  it." 

u  What  do  you  suggest  ?  "  asked  Endicott  respectfully. 

(<You  are  right."  It  was  Tom  Alden,  who  had  been 
brooding  silently,  hardly  saying  a  word.  "  I  want  something 
that  cuts  under  the  old  controversies.  Beyond  good  and 
evil,  as  it  were." 

"  Yes  ?  "  said  Endicott,  encouragingly. 

"Haeckel  has  a  word  that  pleases  me,"  said  Felix. 
"  Monism." 

"  It  pleases  me  too,"  said  Tom  Alden  thoughtfully.  "  In 
its  philosophic  implications." 

The  others  vanished  from  Felix's  consciousness,  and  he 
was  talking  only  to  Tom  Alden.  '*  We  live  in  a  world," 
he  said,  "  in  which  people  are  fooled  by  our  dualistic  habits 
of  language.  We  think  in  terms  of  pairs  of  opposites. 
Day-and-night  seems  a  reality,  and  heat-and-cold ;  so  why 
not  good-and-bad ?  It's  a  primitive  way  of  thinking;  but  it 
isn't  true.  The  world  isn't  like  that." 

"  Sliced  up  into  neat  little  categories,"  nodded  Tom 
Alden,  equally  forgetful  of  the  rest,  and  speaking  only  to 
Felix.  "  Balanced !  Heaven  and  hell !  Chaste  and  un 
chaste  women!  It's  just  a  logomachy  —  a  war  of  words." 

"  The  universe  isn't  two  things,"  said  Felix.  *'  It's  one 
thing.  Let's  assert  that.  Monism !  " 

"  Good !  "  said  Tom  Alden.  "  The  Monist  Society."  He 
fell  into  thought  again,  and  Felix  became  conscious  of  the 
outer  world.  Endicott  was  saying : 

"  I'm  sure  we  all  agree  that  the  name  proposed  by  Mr. 
Alden  is  an  admirable  one.  And  I  think  we  should  appoint 
Mr.  Alden  and  Mr.  Fay  a  committee  to  draw  up  a  manifesto 
for  the  new  society,  to  be  read  at  our  first  regular  meeting  in 
Turner  Hall  next  Thursday  week,  to  which,  I  may  say  again, 
we  have  the  promise  of  the  attendance  of  seventy-two 
members ! " 

There  was  a  murmur  of  applause  around  the  table,  and 
then  Mrs.  Endicott  came  in  with  more  food  and  drink,  and 


Reversion  to  Type  289 

the  party  began  to  break  up.     Tom  Alden  was  immersed  in 
absent  thought,  from  which  he  awoke  suddenly  as  Felix 
came  up  to  bid  him  good  night.     "  It's   early,"   he   said, 
"  come  on  over  to  my  place  for  a  while." 
Felix  gladly  assented. 

3 

"  Do  you  know  Mrs.  Miller  ?  "  Felix  asked,  as  they  passed 
her  house. 

Tom  looked  across  the  lawn  at  the  lighted  windows. 
"  Lulu  ?  Yes  —  and  that  reminds  me.  I  had  intended  to 
ask  her  to  this  meeting.  Let's  go  in  and  tell  her  about  it> 
and  get  her  to  come  to  the  one  in  Turner  Hall." 

'*  Would  she  be  interested  in  —  in  Monism  ? "  asked 
Felix. 

"  Sort  of,"  said  Tom.  "  Amused,  anyway.  It  will  be 
fun  to  tell  her." 

Mrs.  Miller  welcomed  Tom  with  a  cry  of  delight.  "  Why, 
Tommy,"  she  said,  drawing  them  into  the  house,  "  I  haven't 
seen  you  for  years  and  years." 

"  Fact !  "  said  Tom. 

"  I  suspect  you've  come  around  to  convert  me  to  something. 
What  is  it  this  time?  It  was  the  Ego  and  His  Own  last 
time,  I  believe.  You  were  disappointed  in  me,  weren't  you, 
Tommy?  But  I  did  everything  the  book  said.  If  you  only 
knew ! " 

Tom  smiled.     "  Cast  out  of  your  soul  all  the  old  rubbish  ?  " 

"  Rubbish  if  you  want  to  call  it  that.  All  my  best  furni 
ture,  say  I.  All  the  lovely  old  antiques.  It  was  heart 
breaking!  But  I  did  it.  I  threw  them  all  out.  The  front 
yard  of  my  soul  was  just  littered  with  them." 

<4  And  when  you  were  finished,  and  your  soul  was  naked 
and  clean  —  ?  " 

"  And  cold,  Tommy.  Cold  and  shivery  and  bare.  Why 
then  I  just  went  out  in  the  yard  and  carried  them  back,  one 
by  one.  And  here  they  are  again,  just  as  before.  But  I 


290  Moon-Calf 

won't  say  my  soul  isn't  the  better  for  that  —  housecleaning ! 
What  will  you  have,  Tommy?  Bourbon  or  Scotch?  Felix 
doesn't  know  what  he  is  drinking,  anyway." 

Over  the  glasses,  Tom  told  her  about  the  new  society. 
She  laughed.  "  I  knew  it !  You  are  your  old  self  again. 
And  will  I  come  to  the  meeting?  You  can't  keep  me  away. 
You  are  the  funniest  person  I  know.  The  Moonist  Society. 
With  you  and  Felix  as  the  Grand  Chief  Moonists.  It's 
perfectly  lovely.  .  .  ." 

It  was  late  when  they  left,  and  Tom  said,  "  I  suppose  you 
have  to  go  to  work  in  the  morning.  I've  got  in  the  habit  of 
sitting  up  all  night  myself." 

"  This  is  Saturday  night,"  said  Felix. 

"  Oh !  Well,  come  on  over,  and  we'll  have  an  all-night 
talk!  I've  got  some  beautiful  Amontillado  over  in  my 
garret  that  I  haven't  found  any  one  worthy  to  drink  up  with 
me.  We'll  plan  our  manifesto  —  the  Manifesto  of  the 
Moonist  Society ! " 


XXXVI  Statistics 


THE  garret  was  the  same  one  in  which  Felix  had 
been  before,  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  social  en 
counter  with  Tom  Alden  and  his  friends.  But  the 
place  was  changed.  It  had  been  transformed  into  a  kind  of 
writing  room  —  utterly  unlike  the  neat  and  orderly  *'  den  " 
which  Felix  had  glimpsed  on  two  subsequent  occasions  as 
Tom  emerged  from  it  to  talk  with  him.  The  floor  was 
littered  with  old  newspapers,  books  and  crumpled  writing- 
paper.  The  table  at  which  Tom  wrote  was  covered  with 
tobacco  and  ashes,  and  there  were  eight  corncob  pipes  visible. 
There  was  a  couch,  which  apparently  served  as  a  bed,  and 
which  had  been  hastily  and  amateurishly  "  made  "  by  fling 
ing  a  great  piece  of  ragged  tapestry  over  its  lumpy  surface. 
It  was  a  place  into  which,  obviously,  no  woman  had  come 
for  months.  It  was  the  kind  of  place  into  which  a  man  who 
has  been  spoiled  by  women  until  he  is  unable  to  look  after 
himself,  flees  from  their  tiresome  ministrations  —  a  dirty 
and  happy  refuge. 

Tom  Alden,  entering,  kicked  a  bathrobe  that  lay  on  the 
floor  into  the  nearest  corner,  flung  a  soiled  shirt  after  it, 
looked  around  the  room  for  the  wine,  discovered  it  on  a 
long  bookshelf  between  two  volumes  of  Nietzsche,  rummaged 
for  clean  glasses,  sat  down,  poured  out  two  tumblers  of  wine, 
and  then,  happening  to  catch  sight  of  a  piece  of  paper  on  his 
desk,  picked  it  up  and  stared  at  it  thoughtfully.  "  I  nearly 
forgot  to  come  to  the  meeting  tonight,"  he  said,  "  I  was  writ 
ing  this." 

He  continued  to  gaze  at  it,  and  Felix  came  around  and 

291 


292  Moon-Calf 

looked  over  his  shoulder.  It  was  entitled  "  Girls,"  but  it  was 
not  an  ordinary-looking  piece  of  writing.  After  a  short 
paragraph,  ending  abruptly  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  it 
contained  a  list  of  names  and  initials.  To  one  side,  these 
names  and  initials  were  marshalled  in  groups,  with  explana 
tory  but  undecipherable  remarks  attached  to  each  group. 
Underneath,  the  groups  were  analyzed  into  sub-groups,  with 
Greek  letters,  mathematical  and  algebraic  signs,  stars, 
double  stars,  crosses,  and  unknown  hieroglyphics  to  dis 
tinguish  them.  The  page  ended  with  a  series  of  mysterious 
tables,  in  which  the  signs  and  hieroglyphics  were  apparently 
arranged  in  some  kind  of  mysterious  sequence.  .  .  . 

"  It  looks  like  a  statistical  study,"  laughed  Felix. 

Tom  Alden  put  the  paper  down  abruptly.  "  It  is,"  he 
said.  He  lifted  his  glass.  "  Here's  to  the  Very  Improbable 
She!" 

They  drank,  and  Tom  continued.  '*  Instinct  doesn't  work. 
Not  in  matters  of  love.  So  I've  been  trying  to  use  reason. 
I've  been  trying  to  review  my  experiences  with  girls,  to  see 
if  I  have  really  learned  anything  about  them  —  and  myself. 
It  seemed  to  me,  when  I  wrote  all  those  names  down,  that  I 
had  quite  a  lot  of  data  to  go  upon.  But — " 

He  frowned,  and  refilled  his  glass.  "  Perhaps  women  are 
like  the  Universe,  Felix.  Perhaps  there  is  only  one  kind 
of  woman.  It's  a  discouraging  thought." 

"  Perhaps  it's  humanity  that  is  monistic,"  said  Felix. 
"  Perhaps  the  trouble  is  that  we  try  to  think  that  men  and 
women  are  opposed  categories." 

"  I  can't  make  them  out,"  pondered  Tom  Alden.  "  Nor 
myself,  for  that  matter."  He  absently  took  up  the  nearest 
pipe,  lighted  it,  and  wandered  to  the  couch.  "  No  sooner 
am  I  free  from  one  impossible  relationship  than  I  try  my 
damndest  to  get  into  another  which  the  cynicism  born  of 
failure  tells  me  will  be  just  as  bad.  Of  course  I  don't 
believe  it.  And  of  course  this  statistical  study,  as  you  call  it, 
is  merely  an  attempt  to  reassure  myself.  I  know  what  I 
want.  It  may  be  impossible  to  get,  but  it  is  not  impossible 


Statistics  293 

to  imagine.  I  don't  want  to  be  tied  hand  and  foot;  and  I 
don't  want  a  succession  of  light  loves.  I  want  an  enduring 
love  that  is  free  —  absolutely  free.  That  means  something 
to  me,  if  to  nobody  else."  He  was  silent  a  while,  smoking, 
and  then  rousing  himself  suddenly,  smiled  and  §aid  to  Felix, 
"What  do  you  think?" 


"  My  demands  are  much  simpler  than  that,*'  laughed  Felix. 
"  I  merely  want  a  girl  that  can  be  talked  to,  and  that  can  be 
kissed.  And  I  want  it  to  be  the  same  girl.  So  far  it  doesn't 
work  out  that  way.  I  might  match  your  statistics  with  some 
of  mine  as  dramatic  critic.  You  know  I  get  two  seats  to 
every  play,  and  I  usually  take  a  girl  along.  Sometimes  I 
take  an  intellectual  young  woman,  and  sometimes  a  kissable 
one  —  and  I  don't  find  either  type  satisfactory." 

"  That's  a  startingly  juvenile  statement,"  said  Tom  Alden. 
"  Why  in  the  world  should  you  not  regard  intellectual  young 
women  as  kissable?" 

"I  don't  know,"  confessed  Felix.  "But  the  fact  is,  I 
like  the  others  better.  Perhaps  my  tastes  are  vulgar.  I 
am  more  at  home  with  them  —  I  feel  freer.  But  when  I  sit 
beside  them  in  the  theatre,  and  hear  them  laugh  at  silly 
jokes,  and  feel  their  lack  of  appreciation  of  something  a 
little  subtle,  I  —  well,  I  despise  them." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  the  quality  of  Port  Royal  feminine  intellec 
tuality  that  freezes  you,"  mused  Tom.     *'  I  can  understand 
that.     There's  the  kind  that's  been  to  college,  and  learned   ( 
the  right  things,  and  read  the  proper  books,  and  rehearsed 
the  correct  opinions ;  she's  absolutely  confident  of  her  right- 
ness    about    everything;    but    she    ends    every    discussion 
just  where  it  ought  to   begin.     Then  there's  the  terribly 
idealistic  kind ;  a  little  afraid  to  touch  the  rough  edges  of 
life,  or  of  ideas.     They  want  to  believe  the  best  of  things    1 
and  people;  which  means  that  they  have  prejudged  what  is 


294  Moon-Calf 

best.  Their  tolerance  isn't  real  tolerance ;  it's  timidity.  And 
then  there's  the  cynical  woman,  who  still  believes  in  the 
things  she  mocks;  at  least,  she's  afraid  to  believe  in  any 
thing  else.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  can  see  that  if  you're  cooped  up  here 
in  Port  Royal,  you  might  find  the  unintellectual  kind  a 
relief.  .  .  .  But  Felix,  there  is  a  world  outside  of  Port 
Royal ! " 

He  fell  to  musing  again,  and  Felix,  ashamedly  anxious 
to  obliterate  the  impression  he  had  given  of  the  juvenility 
of  his  point  of  view,  hastily  ransacked  his  memory  for  some 
experience  that  had  a  more  adult  flavour.  But  he  realized 
that  all  his  experiences  had  been  precisely  that  —  juvenile. 
He  thought  for  a  moment  of  telling  Tom  about  his  "  affair  " 
with  Lulu  Miller  —  effectually  disguising  the  identity  of 
the  lady,  of  course;  but  he  realized  that  that  was  the  most 
juvenile  of  them  all.  The  kisses  he  had  exchanged  with 
the  stenographer  last  week  on  the  roller  coaster  at  the  Island 
were  more  real  than  all  those  rondeaus,  and  not  a  whit  more 
lacking  in  any  kind  of  significance. 

"  It's  true,"  he  said,  thinking  aloud.  "My  attitude  is 
juvenile.  Perhaps  I  am  —  really  —  afraid  of  girls.  Of 
course,  every  young  man  pretends  to  be  very  wicked.  So 
do  I,  when  I  am  with  them.  I  don't  know  whether  they  are 
lying  or  not,  but  I  am.  Perhaps  I'm  really  a  Puritan.  But 
I  can't  help  taking  those  things  very  seriously.  I  want  real 
love,  and  I  want  a  real  girl  to  be  in  love  with." 

"  And  you  live  in  Port  Royal,"  mused  Tom.  "  That  is 
a  hard  fate.  Well,  let's  have  some  more  wine,  and  maybe 
it  will  throw  light  on  the  problem.  .  .  .  You  know,  Felix, 
you  are  very  different  in  some  ways  from  what  I  was  at  your 
age,  and  yet  curiously  the  same.  I  wonder  if  that  was  why 
I  sort  of  didn't  like  you  when  I  first  knew  you?  You  re 
minded  me  of  something  strained  and  unhappy  in  my  own 
early  youth.  Something  I  suppose  I  wanted  to  forget.  I 
was  successful  and  happy  then,  and  I  wanted  to  believe  that 
I  always  would  be  so  and  always  had  been.  But  I  think 


Statistics  295 

you've  become  more  human  in  the  last  couple  of  years,  too. 

—  Or  perhaps   I   have   become   less   human.     My   friends 
think  so.     They  think  I  need  some  creature  not  too  bright 
and  good  for  human  nature's  daily  food,  to  regulate  my 
meals  for  me  and  remind  me  to  shave  and  change  my  collar 

—  in  fact,  a  new  wife.     I  don't  think  so.     I  think  I  know 
what  I  want.     I  want —     Shall  I  show  you  something  I've 
been  writing  ?  " 

He  rummaged  among  the  barricade  of  papers  on  his  desk 
and  drew  forth  a  manuscript  and  read  it.  ...  It  was 
a  dithyramb,  not  a  story;  a  prose-poem,  that  presently  left 
behind  the  trammels  of  realistic  fact,  and  soared  into  the 
lonely  heights  of  prophecy.  It  was  wild,  chaotic,  and  at 
times  only  half  intelligible  to  Felix.  But  it  appealed  to 
something  in  him  deeper  than  the  powers  of  conscious  cere 
bration  which  he  had  at  first  bewilderedly  brought  to  bear 
upon  it.  For  it  awoke  old  memories,  childhood  experi 
ences  buried  under  the  debris  of  years  —  his  mother  bend 
ing  above  him  in  the  sick-bed  —  the  "  opera-house "  in 
Maple,  and  his  vision  of  a  wild  girl-creature  swinging 
through  the  air  upon  a  trapeze  —  his  forgotten  playmate  of 
the  garret  and  the  woods.  ...  It  evoked  these  memories, 
these  pictures,  as  music  can ;  and  it  carried  him  into  strange, 
but  not  untrodden  regions  of  emotion,  where  he  had  lived 
for  a  time  when  he  first  made  poems  on  his  lonely  walks  at 
night.  He  was  again  what  he  had  ceased  for  a  while  to  be, 
or  to  seem,  the  lonely,  unhappy,  desperately  desiring  and 
bewildered  child.  .  .  . 

3 

They  talked,  after  that,  of  books,  and  ideas,  and  Nietz- 
schean  philosophy,  and  women.  They  talked  all  night,  and 
at  dawn,  still  wakeful  in  spite  of  the  bottle  of  Amontillado 
and  another  of  claret,  they  went  out  in  search  of  an  all- 
night  restaurant  where  they  could  get  a  breakfast  of  ham 
and  eggs.  Then  they  walked  up  the  long  hill  to  Vander- 


296  Moon-Calf 

decken  park  in  the  cool  morning  air,  and  went  back  to  the 
garret.  .  .  .  There  were  still  so  many  things  to  be  talked 
about.  . 


XXXVII  The  Quest 


THE  first  regular  meeting  of  the  Monist  society  was 
duly  held  in  Turner  Hall,  and  there  were  some  fifty 
people  present;  among  them,  as  a  highly  amused 
spectator,  Mrs.  Miller.     Felix  and  Tom  Alden  both  read 
documents  which  were  in  some  sort  manifestoes  of  the  new 
society.     It  got  half  a  column  in  each  of  the  daily  papers. 
After  that,  it  either  lived  or  died,  but  Felix  and  Tom  did 
not  trouble  themselves  to  find  out.     They  could  talk  to  each 
other  better  without  the  accompanying  presence  of  the  fifty- 
odd  members  of  the  Monist  society. 

They  became  inseparable.  Felix's  evenings  were  all  spent 
in  Tom's  garret,  where  Tom  would  generally  lie  on  the  couch, 
puffing  in  the  intervals  of  philosophic  disquisition  on  one  of 
his  eight  corn-cob  pipes.  Their  talk  centred  always  upon 
what  Tom  called  the  Girl  Question;  they  discussed  it  from 
the  scientific,  the  Socialistic,  the  Anarchistic,  the  Nietzschean, 
the  biological,  and  the  experimental-opportunist  points  of 
view.  Mrs.  Miller  mocked  them  gaily  when,  upon  her  invi 
tation,  they  dined  with  her;  they  absented  themselves,  she 
said,  from  the  world  of  women  because  they  were  misogyn 
ists;  but  they  could  not  dispense  with  women  entirely,  so 
they  talked  about  them  all  the  time.  A  cowardly  thing  to 
do,  she  said,  when  they  could  not  talk  back! 

They  not  only  talked  about  girls,  but  in  pursuance  of  the 
experimental-opportunist  method,  they  went  forth  to  study 
them  in  their  lairs.  Tom,  with  what  Felix  called  his  "  pas 
sion  for  statistics,"  wrote  down  the  name  of  every  girl  in 
town  that  he  knew  or  had  heard  of,  and  discussed  their  pos 
sibilities  as  friends,  sweethearts,  and  companions ;  and  when 

297 


298 


Moon-Calf 


nine-tenths  of  them  had  been  stricken  from  the  list,  they 
looked  up  the  others,  entered  into  diplomatic  relations  with 
them,  and  went  to  call  upon  them.  They  confided  their  pro 
gram  to  Mrs.  Miller,  and  she  laughed  hysterically.  "  You 
two  will  be  the  death  of  me  yet !  "  she  declared.  "  Bouvard 
and  Pecuchet  in  Port  Royal !  How  I  do  wish  I  could  write 
a  story  about  you."  But  she  gave  them  the  names  of  vari 
ous  "  eligible  "  young  women,  and  remarked  that  after  all 
they  had  only  come  by  a  roundabout  and  philosophic  method 
to  a  time-honoured  and  perfectly  conventional  kind  of  be 
haviour.  '*  If  only  Felix  would  learn  to  play  bridge  and 
get  a  suit  of  evening  clothes,  you  two  would  be  the  social 
success  of  the  season !  " 

After  each  call,  or  dinner-party,  they  came  home  together 
and  discussed  the  merits  of  the  fair  ones  under  considera 
tion  ;  the  decision  was  invariably  adverse,  but  some  kind  of 
social  life  was  doubtless  necessary  to  them,  and  the  philo 
sophic  aftermath  made  it  less  boring  than  it  would  other 
wise  have  been. 

But  these  scientific  experiments  and  observations  were, 
early  in  the  spring,  suddenly  interrupted. 


Felix's  position  as  dramatic  critic  did  not  mean  that  he 
did  any  less  of  the  ordinary  work  of  a  reporter;  he  had 
been  relieved  of  the  duty  of  "  making  the  trains  "  and  visit 
ing  the  undertakers  since  a  new  "  cub  "  had  appeared  in  the 
office,  but  he  continued  to  visit  the  post-office,  the  weather- 
bureau,  the  banks,  and  a  number  of  lawyers'  offices  in  quest 
of  "  news."  One  of  these  offices,  which  occupied  a  palatial 
suite  of  rooms  in  the  Nugent  Building,  was  that  of  Nugent, 
Bassett  and  Ward,  the  town's  most  prosperous  law-firm. 
Bassett  was  "  the  man  to  see  "  there  —  James  F.  Bassett, 
the  busiest  but  the  most  approachable  lawyer  in  town.  He 
liked  to  talk  to  young  reporters,  even  when  he  did  not  have 
anything  to  give  them  except  a  funny  story  and  a  cigar; 
and  Felix  always  waited  for  him  unless  the  girl  at  the  desk 


The  Quest  299 

said  that  it  was  no  use.  He  did  not  mind  waiting,  because 
he  liked  Bassett,  with  his  bluff,  hearty  familiarity.  Bassett 
had  a  way  of  finding  out  everything  about  you,  and  "  kid 
ding  "  you  about  it.  He  had  found  out  from  Felix  that  he 
was  interested  in  writing,  and  was  always  asking  him  if  he 
had  commenced  "  the  great  American  novel  "  yet.  He  also 
knew  that  Felix  had  taken  the  girl  at  the  desk  in  front  to 
the  theatre,  and  he  would  gravely  make  inquiries  about  the 
progress  of  "  the  amour,"  and  shake  his  head  at  the  timidity 
of  the  younger  generation.  *'  Why,  at  your  age,  my  boy, 
I  would  have  carried  that  girl  off  and  married  her  and  had 
a  family  started  by  this  time !  It  doesn't  do  to  be  so  slow. 
You  remember  what  happened  to  Polly ! " 

Polly  was  the  previous  occupant  of  the  desk,  with  whom 
Felix  had  also  been  charmed;  Felix  had  missed  her  one 
day,  and  been  informed  that  she  had  quit,  and  was  going 
to  be  married  to  an  automobile  salesman.  "  You  missed 
your  chance !  "  Bassett  said,  rolling  his  big  cigar  in  the 
corner  of  his  mouth.  "  You're  too  slow.  You'll  have  to 
work  faster  than  that  with  Lucy  here !  " 

Lucy,  her  successor,  was  another  reason  why  Felix  did 
not  mind  waiting  around  for  James  F.  Bassett.  Lucy  was 
nicer  even  than  Polly,  and  she  had  almost  survived  his  reac 
tion  to  her  at  the  silly  play  where  she  had  giggled  and 
cried,  like  everybody  in  the  theatre  except  Felix.  .  .  .  He 
almost  believed  Basset  was  in  earnest  in  wanting  him  to 
marry  one  of  those  girls.  '*  Nothing  like  getting  married 
when  you  are  young/'  he  had  said.  "  Look  at  me.  Got 
five  children,  and  'm  the  happiest  man  on  earth ! "  Felix 
had  ventured,  half  seriously,  to  remark  that  a  young  re 
porter's  salary  was  not  anything  to  get  married  on,  and 
Bassett  had  laughed.  "  Leave  that  to  her,"  he  said. 
"  What  she  spends  you'll  earn,  all  right.  You'll  have  to ! 
A  young  fellow  that  isn't  married  doesn't  need  any  money. 
He'd  just  waste  it  if  he  had  it.  But  a  girl  that's  got 
anything  to  her  knows  how  to  make  a  man  earn  money, 
never  you  worry !  "  .  .  .  Well,  there  was  doubtless  some- 


300  Moon-Calf 

thing  to  that;  Lucy  would  probably  make  a  success  of  the 
man  she  married  ;  but  somehow  Felix  didn't  want  to  be  made 
a  success  of  by  Lucy.  He  could  not  forget  that  she  had 

" 


But  one  Saturday  morning,  in  the  first  teasing  days  of 
spring,  when  he  walked  into  Nugent,  Bassett  and  Ward's 
waiting-room,  there  was  another  girl  at  the  desk.  At  first 
he  saw  only  the  sunlight  making  a  dazzling  nimbus  around 
the  edges  of  her  careless  yellow  hair.  He  stopped  sud 
denly.  She  looked  up,  and  their  eyes  met. 

3 

With  a  great  effort,  he  put  on  an  exceedingly  casual  air, 
and  came  up  to  her  desk.  She  looked  down  at  her  type 
writing  machine. 

He  asked  if  Mr.  Bassett  was  busy,  and  was  told  that  he 
was  very  busy.  He  was  in  an  important  conference.  That 
meant  that  there  was  no  chance  of  seeing  him  today,  and 
Felix  should  have  gone.  But  he  did  not  go.  He  stayed 
and  talked.  He  asked  what  had  become  of  Lucy,  and 
heard  that  she  was  ill.  Not  that  he  cared  what  had  hap 
pened  to  Lucy.  He  only  wanted  to  talk. 

She  apparently  did  not  mind.  Or  rather,  she  did  appear 
to  mind  ;  she  appeared  to  be  slightly  annoyed  by  the  persist 
ent  and  frivolous  conversation  of  this  strange  young  man. 
He  was  saying  nothing  in  particular  with  an  amused  and 
personal  air  ;  "  kidding,"  it  was  called.  And  she  was  ap 
parently  just  enough  amused  to  keep  her  from  brusquely 
sending  him  about  his  business.  It  was  the  usual  feminine 
defence  to  the  ordinary  masculine  attack  ;  it  meant,  '*  If  you 
stay  here,  you  do  so  on  your  own  responsibility  —  I'm  not 
encouraging  you  !  "  But  there  was  something  more  in  her 
manner,  that  lit  her  face,  and  informed  every  gesture,  and 
filled  the  situation  with  an  electrical  excitement.  She  was 
keeping  —  or  trying  to  keep  —  a  secret  :  the  secret  that  they 
had  read  in  each  other's  eyes  in  that  first  moment  when  he 
came  in  the  door  and  their  eyes  met.  If  Felix  had  not  been 


The  Quest  301 

analyzing  his  emotions  so  much  lately,  he  would  have  stayed 
and  talked  just  the  same;  but  he  might  not  have  consciously 
known  what  happened  in  that  first  moment.  Now  he  knew. 
It  was  a  beautiful  and  terrible  thing;  and  he  too  was  keep 
ing —  or  trying  to  keep  —  that  secret,  as  he  bantered  jocu 
larities  with  her.  That  instant  in  which  their  eyes  met  had 
not  been  a  fleeting  speck  of  time ;  it  had  been  a  moment  out 
of  the  world  of  ticking  clocks,  a  moment  in  which  they  had 
seen  each  other  with  clairvoyant  vision,  not  as  strangers, 
but  as  belonging  irrevocably  to  each  other;  in  that  glance, 
she  was  his,  and  he  hers ;  and  they  knew  it. 

"  Haven't  you  got  anything  else  to  do  ?  "  she  asked  at  last, 
with  apparent  impatience,  sticking  another  sheet  of  paper 
into  her  typewriter. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  glancing  at  the  clock,  "  and  it  will  take 
me  just  about  an  hour  to  do  it.  By  that  times  James  F. 
will  be  ready  to  close  up  the  office,  and  go  golfing."  It  was 
Saturday.  "  And  then  I  want  you  to  go  for  a  walk  with 
me." 

"  Hmp,"  she  said.     "  Is  that  all  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no.  I  want  your  whole  afternoon.  The  walk  is 
just  the  beginning.  But  we  can  plan  what  to  do  as  we  go 
along." 

She  smiled  coolly.  *'  You  have  your  nerve,"  she  said, 
and  commenced  to  write.  But  Felix  knew  from  the  way 
her  fingers  touched  the  keys  that  she  was  only  writing  over 
and  over,  "  Now  is  the  time  for  all  good  men  to  come  to  the 
aid  of  the  party." 

"  I  shall  wait  for  you,"  he  said,  "  at  one  o'clock  sharp, 
down  in  the  lobby  by  the  cigar  counter.  We  can  eat  lunch 
either  before  we  walk  or  afterward,  just  as  we  feel  like." 

"  You  can  wait  —  anywhere  you  like,"  she  said  serenely, 
and  went  on  writing. 

"  At  one  o'clock,  remember,"  he  said,  and  went  out. 
She  did  not  look  up.  But  he  knew  she  would  be  there. 


XXXVIII  The  Girl 


HE  was  so  sure  that  she  would  be  there,  that  in  the 
five  minutes  while  he  waited  at  the  cigar-counter 
for  the  minute  hand  of  the  lobby  clock  to  reach  its 
appointed  place,  he  let  his  fancy  range  unrestrained.  He 
built  castles  in  the  air;  and  the  little  corner  of  his  brain 
which  looked  on  while  he  did  so  was  not  so  much  cynical 
as  sheerly  surprised  at  the  nature  of  the  castles  that  he 
built.  For  they  were  conventional,  to  say  the  least.  They 
were  entirely  such  as  Jim  Bassett  himself  would  have  ap 
proved.  .  .  .  He  saw  himself  and  her  in  a  little  cottage  in 
the  suburbs,  with  a  garden  behind  it ;  he  was  digging  in  the 
garden  —  he  who  hated  gardening !  —  digging  and  planting 
and  hoeing  the  ground  that  was  to  bear  food  for  them. 
And  presently  out  of  the  house  she  came,  with  her  yellow 
hair  all  touseled,  and  an  apron  tied  around  her  waist,  to  call 
him  in  to  the  dinner  that  she  had  cooked.  And  there  were 
babies.  .  .  .  Wherever  he  went  in  that  dream-cottage  he 
saw  them  —  in  her  arms,  playing  on  the  floor.  .  .  .  He  lit  a 
cigarette,  and  the  corner  of  his  brain  which  was  looking  on, 
spoke.  "Are  you  thinking  of  getting  married,  Felix?" 
He  puffed  at  the  cigarette,  blew  out  a  cloud  of  smoke,  and 
answered  himself,  not  without  surprise,  "  Yes,  by  God,  I 
am ! "  Then  he  threw  his  cigarette  away,  and  looked  im 
patiently  at  the  clock.  It  was  one  o'clock. 

And  then  she  came.  They  met  like  old  friends,  and  de 
cided  to  postpone  their  lunch  until  they  had  walked  up  an 
appetite.  "  We'll  go  up  through  Vanderdecken  Park.  It's 
beginning  to  be  beautiful." 

302 


The  Girl  303 

"  But  don't  you  have  to  work  on  Saturday  afternoon  ?  " 
she  asked,  as  they  swung  off  up  the  hill. 

*'  Yes,"  he  said.  "  I  am  taking  you  along.  I'm  going  to 
write  the  spring  story  about  Vanderdecken  Park.  And 
then  I'm  going  to  the  Island.  This  is  the  opening  day  of 
the  season.  And  I'm  going  to  write  a  story  about  that." 

"  The  Island  ?  "  she  said.  "  I've  never  been  there.  What 
is  it  like?" 

"  An  amusement  park,"  he  said.  "  We'll  be  children,  and 
ride  in  the  chute-the-chute  — 'n'  ever'thing !  " 

44  What  fun!" 

Their  secret  remained  untold,  while  they  walked  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  Park,  and  saw  the  flowers  bud 
ding  on  the  warm  slopes  and  in  the  greenhouses,  and  inter 
viewed  the  old  gardener.  Felix  had  gone  away  from  the 
office  without  any  clear  picture  of  her  in  his  mind,  remem 
bering  nothing  with  any  certainty  except  that  first  tell-tale 
look  in  her  eyes.  Now  his  first  impression  of  her  was  a 
delight  in  her  free  boyish  stride,  and  a  sharp  pleasure  in  the 
way  her  floppy  straw  hat  framed  her  face;  he  remembered 
that  the  hair  underneath  was  a  glorious  yellow;  he  saw 
that  her  nose  was  snub,  and  he  felt  that  he  had  never  real 
ized  the  beauty  of  a  snub  nose  before.  Her  face  was  round, 
and  she  had  a  baby  mouth.  It  was  a  type  of  beauty  to 
which  many  men  before  Felix  had  fallen  captive,  but  Felix 
felt  it  as  a  new  discovery.  She  glowed  with  health  and 
life ;  she  was  charming.  He  loved  her. 

After  they  had  explored  the  park,  and  eaten  lunch  in  the 
Park  restaurant,  they  took  the  trolley  for  the  Island. 

"  And  this,"  said  she,  '*  is  what  you  call  work ! " 

He  had  demanded  her  name ;  it  was  Joyce  Tennant.  She 
told  him  she  already  knew  his.  "  I  asked  my  —  my  Boss 
who  that  fresh  kid  from  the  newspaper  was." 

"  He  probably  thought  you  meant  the  fellow  from  the 
Record"  said  Felix.  "  I'll  bet  he  told  you  Deems  Morgan." 

"  No  he  didn't.  He  told  me  Felix  Fay.  And  he  said  — " 
But  she  stopped. 


304  Moon-Calf 

"Well,  what  did  he  say?" 

"  Oh,  you  know  how  he  talks !  —  you  can  imagine  what 
he  said/' 

"What  was  it?" 

"Nevermind!" 

They  rode  on  the  roller  coaster,  and  he  kissed  her  as 
they  went  slowly  through  the  dark  passage  after  the  breath 
less  descent.  When  they  came  to  the  end  of  the  ride,  he 
said,  "  Let's  stay  on,"  and  they  repeated  the  ride,  and  the 
kiss.  A  third  time.  ...  It  was  strange,  he  felt,  as  they 
emerged,  that  this  cool  and  indifferent-seeming  girl  could 
be  the  same  who  had  given  her  lips  to  him  in  the  darkness 
so  fearlessly,  so  devoutly.  She  was  denying  now  what  she 
had  told  him  then  with  her  kiss;  but  he  knew  that  it  was 
true.  .  .  . 

They  dined  in  the  park,  and  danced  in  one  of  the  pavili 
ons,  and  wandered  among  the  merry-making  crowds,  saying 
little  —  because  the  only  thing  that  mattered  did  not  need 
saying.  At  last  she  said,  "  Take  me  home." 

Felix  hardly  noticed  where  they  were  going  as  they  got 
off  the  street  car  in  Port  Royal  and  walked  along  the  quiet 
dark  streets.  He  was  wondering  —  should  he  ask  her  to 
go  with  him  to  the  play  Monday  night?  He  decided  not 
to.  But  he  did,  suddenly,  when  she  stopped  on  the  side 
walk  in  front  of  her  house  and  put  out  her  hand  a  little 
formally  in  farewell. 

"  Why,  yes,"  she  said.  "  I'd  like  to.  Hadn't  you  better 
take  the  address?  I  don't  believe  you've  the  slightest  no 
tion  where  you  are." 

He  scribbled  it  down,  and  walked  homeward.  "  I'm 
afraid  I've  spoiled  it,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  She  won't  like 
Bernard  Shaw,  and  I'll  not  like  her  any  more.  .  .  .  Damn 
Shaw!  If  I  have  vulgar  tastes,  why  should  that  old  vege 
tarian  interfere  ?  " 


The  Girl  305 


He  did  not  have  time  on  Monday  to  stop  at  Bassett's 
office;  and  besides,  he  was  afraid  that  a  second  meeting 
with  his  beloved  might  destroy  some  of  the  illusion  which 
still  intoxicated  him.  He  half  regretted  that  he  was  to  see 
her  that  evening,  though  he  was  determined  not  to  let  any 
intellectual  snobbishness  keep  him  from  liking  her,  if  she 
still  seemed  as  nice  as  before.  He  was  intent  upon  these 
thoughts  when  he  crossed  the  lawn,  strode  up  the  steps  and 
rang  the  bell  at  the  number  she  had  given  him.  He  had 
merely  time  enough  to  be  a  little  startled  at  the  imposing 
air  of  the  entrance,  and  to  wonder  briefly  if  he  had  not 
made  a  mistake,  when  the  door  opened,  and  a  white-aproned 
maid  appeared  before  him.  "  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said. 
"  Is  this " —  he  referred  to  the  number  and  stated  it. 
"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  maid. 

"  Is  Miss  Tennant  in  ?     Miss  Joyce  Tennant  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir.     Who  shall  I  say—" 

"  Mr.  Fay,"  said  Felix. 

Her  gesture  at  the  door  invited  him  into  the  hall.  *'  Will 
you  wait  a  minute?"  And  she  went  through  the  curtains. 
There  was  a  murmur  of  voices,  and  the  next  moment  the 
curtains  parted  again,  disclosing  the  burly  form  of  James 
F.  Bassett. 

"How  do  you  do,  Felix?"  said  James  F.  Bassett,  hold 
ing  out  his  hand  to  Felix  with  a  quizzical  smile.  "  My 
niece  will  be  ready  in  a  moment.  Come  in  the  library  and 
have  a  cigar  with  me  while  she's  primping." 

Dazed,  Felix  followed  him. 


XXXIX  Explanations 


FELIX  need  not  have  been  so  terribly  impressed.  He 
had  not  intruded  into  a  palace.  The  Bassett  house 
was  merely  large  and  comfortable.  The  Oriental 
rug  on  which  he  had  stood  during  those  few  bewildered 
moments  in  the  hall  was  quite  the  grandest  thing  about 
the  place.  When  the  Bassett  children  had  become  a  little 
older,  their  father  would  be  compelled  to  adapt  his  standard 
of  living  to  their  sense  of  what  was  due  to  their  social  posi 
tion;  the  eldest  of  them,  a  girl  in  high  school,  was  just  be 
ginning  to  pester  him  to  buy  a  car.  But  these  Babylonian 
tastes  were  as  yet  but  in  the  bud.  Even  the  maid,  whose 
appearance  at  the  door  had  so  paralyzed  Felix,  was  not 
exclusively  dedicated  to  such  appearances;  she  had  been 
washing  up  the  dinner-dishes,  and  had  hastily  donned  for 
the  occasion  the  white  apron  which  was  kept  for  such  emer 
gencies  hanging  on  a  nail  behind  the  kitchen  door;  and  it 
was  merely  in  deference  to  Felix's  shyness  that  Mr.  Bassett 
had  taken  him  to  the  library,  rather  than  to  the  big  living- 
room  at  the  end  of  the  hall,  where  the  earliest  of  three  high- 
school  boys  who  had  been  promised  a  plate  of  fudge  was 
sitting  at  the  piano  trying  to  pick  out  the  notes  of  a  popular 
tune,  and  "  the  twins "  were  quarrelling  with  each  other 
over  the  respective  merits  of  their  newest  electric  toys. 
There  was  nothing  socially  oppressive  about  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Bassett  home. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  what  Felix  had  expected. 

While  James  F.  Bassett  was  inquiring  Felix's  views  on 
the  political  situation  (and,  in  default  of  any  rational 
reply,  urbanely  giving  his  own),  Felix  was  thinking 
furiously. 

306 


Explanations  307 

So  Joyce  was  not  a  stenographer  after  all !  ...  She  had 
merely  come  down  for  the  day  —  for  a  lark,  perhaps.  And 
he  (silly,  blundering  fool)  had  taken  her  for  a  working-girl. 
What  a  joke  it  must  have  seemed  to  her.  A  stenographer's 
Saturday  afternoon  at  an  amusement  park !  .  .  .  He  burned 
with  shame. 

Who  was  she?  He  remembered  that  she  had  not  known 
what  the  Island  was.  She  must  be  a  stranger  in  Port 
Royal.  Probably  there  visiting  her  cousins.  She  would 
tell  them  about  her  adventure :  he  could  hear  in  fancy  their 
appreciative  giggles.  Had  she  already  told  her  uncle? 
Felix  looked  sharply  at  that  affable  person,  but  he  could 
not  guess.  James  F.  Bassett's  manner  was  that  of  the 
perfect  host.  What  ironic  mockery  lay  beneath  its  easy 
geniality,  Felix  could  only  uncomfortably  try  to 
imagine.  .  .  . 

But  why  had  the  girl  accepted  his  invitation  to  go  to  the 
theatre? 

Did  she  want  to  exhibit  her  victim  to  amused  and  in 
credulous  relatives?  Or  was  it  merely  in  order  to  reveal 
her  identity  to  him,  and  enjoy  his  discomfiture?  Yes,  that 
must  be  it.  Otherwise,  why  prolong  the  joke? 

Well,  she  would  get  little  satisfaction  out  of  him  on  that 
score. 

He  would  ask  her  point-blank,  "  \Vhy  have  you  been 
masquerading  as  a  stenographer?"  .  .  .  But  in  fancy  he 
could  hear  her  cool  reply,  "  So  it  was  because  you  thought 
I  was  a  stenographer  that  you  were  so  familiar,  was  it?" 

He  might  have  known  that  she  was  a  masquerader.  .  .  . 
No  real  stenographer  would  have  behaved  as  she  had  done! 
She  would  have  been  much  more  ladylike.  Did  he  not  know 
how  stenographers  behaved  the  first  time  they  were  out  with 
a  young  man!  Afterward,  perhaps  —  but  she  would  not 
have  let  him  kiss  her  that  first  day.  ...  He  wished  he 
could  tell  her  that ! 

James  F.  Bassett  had  just  finished  a  picturesque  anecdote 
intended  to  throw  light  on  the  political  character  of  Theo- 


308  Moon-Calf 

dore  Roosevelt,  when  there  was  a  little  cry,  "  I'm  coming !  " 
and  Joyce  entered. 

Both  of  the  men  stood  up,  and  Felix  looked  at  her  with 
a  hard  and  hostile  gaze.  She  was  wearing  a  soft  blue  dress 
and  a  very  wide  hat.  Felix  said  to  himself  that  she  was  in 
tolerably  dressed-up.  Really  he  could  not  help  thinking  that 
she  was  terribly  pretty.  He  had  been  prepared  to  see  a  dif 
ferent  person  —  the  niece  of  James  F.  Bassett.  This  girl 
was  still  somehow  very  like  the  one  he  had  played  with  two 
days  before  —  disarmingly  so. 

"  Am  I  awfully  late  ?  "  she  asked. 

'*  Plenty  of  time,"  said  her  uncle,  looking  her  up  and 
down,  and  giving  her  a  pat  of  approval.  "  What's  the 
play?" 

"  Arms  and  the  Man,"  said  Felix. 

"  A  musical  comedy,  eh  ?  "  commented  James  F.  Bassett, 
ushering  them  benevolently  to  the  door. 


Out  on  the  steps  Joyce  giggled.  Felix  had  been  smiling 
grimly  at  her  uncle's  remark  about  the  play,  and  it  suddenly 
occured  to  him  that  she  was  laughing  at  the  same  thing. 
He  was  prepared,  in  his  uncertain  frame  of  mind,  to  believe 
anything  of  her  now:  and  a  new  conception  of  her  leaped 
dazzingly  into  his  mind  —  a  girl  who  had  read  Shaw  and 
kissed  young  men  in  amusement-parks  in  the  conscious 
knowledge  that  she  was  obeying  the  urge  of  the  Life  Force ! 

He  stole  a  timid  sidewise  glance.  There  was  something 
splendid  about  her! 

Had  he,  then,  made  the  great  discovery?  Was  this  that 
Very  Improbable  She,  whom  one  could  kiss  on  the  roller- 
coaster  and  yet  talk  to  at  a  Shaw  play?  The  thought  was 
almost  terrifying.  Had  romance  in  its  most  modern  terms 
come  to  him  in  Port  Royal,  after  all  ? 

He  envisaged  himself  and  her,  in  one  breathless  visionary 
moment,  as  hero  and  heroine  of  a  super-Shavian  epic 
—  a  twentieth-century  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Helene 


Explanations  309 

von  Racowitza!  The  dalliance  of  the  eagles!  .  .  .  He 
looked  at  her  again.  She  did  not  seem  quite  so  modern  as 
all  that.  She  looked,  truth  to  tell,  more  like  a  pretty  girl 
in  her  prettiest  dress,  going  to  a  party.  And  yet  there  was 
something  free  and  fearless  in  her  aspect  that  lifted  her  out 
of  the  category  of  ordinary  girls  —  yes,  there  was. 

He  repeated  experimentally  (for  all  these  thoughts  had 
taken  but  one  dizzy  instant)  her  uncle's  words.  "  A  musical 
comedy !  "  He  repeated  them  with  scorn. 

She  looked  up  inquiringly  and  without  that  answering 
flash  which  would  have  proved  her  sophistication.  "  It's 
not  a  musical  comedy  at  all,  is  it?" 

Felix  was  half  disappointed  and  perhaps  half  relieved. 
He  smiled  tolerantly.  "  No,"  he  said.  "  It's  a  play  by 
Bernard  Shaw." 

"  Bernard  Shaw  ?  —  Oh,  yes !  " 

But  there  was  no  use  now  in  her  saying  "  Oh,  yes !  "  in 
that  tone  of  voice  to  him.  He  had  "  her  number,"  he  said 
grimly  to  himself.  Besides,  Shaw  was  not  one  of  the 
people  that  you  Oh  yessed.  You  were  either  in  on  Shaw, 
or  you  weren't.  She  was  an  outsider.  That  was  settled. 
...  A  daughter  of  the  bourgeoisie,  merely. 

44  What's  this  play  about?"  she  asked. 

He  caught  the  suggestion  that  of  course  they  both  knew 
what  all  the  other  plays  were  about;  but  it  didn't  go  down. 

'*  It's  about  — "  he  began,  and  then  stopped.  "  Why 
spoil  it  by  telling  about  it  beforehand  ?  " 

He  had  a  reason.  It  had  struck  him  as  being  interesting 
to  wait  and  see  what  she  thought  of  Shaw  herself,  without 
a  preface  from  an  enthusiastic  disciple.  He  said  to  him 
self  that  it  would  be  amusing  to  observe  the  impact  of 
Shavian  ideas  upon  a  virgin  mind.  And  then,  too,  perhaps 
she  was  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  such  ideas.  .  .  .  He 
checked  himself  midway  in  the  imaginary  direction  of  her 
intellectual  and  spiritual  re-education,  by  reminding  himself 
that  she  was  the  niece  of  James  F.  Bassett  —  a  daughter 
of  the  bourgeoisie. 


310  Moon-Calf 

"  Why  are  you  so  quiet  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Cat  got  your 
tongue  ?  " 

"  Thinking,"  he  said. 

They  were  walking  through  the  streets  they  had  traversed 
two  nights  before,  taking  her  home  —  but  how  differently! 
Not  that,  Felix  had  to  confess  to  himself,  he  could  see  much 
difference  outwardly  in  her  attitude  to  him;  it  was  what  it 
had  always  been  except  for  those  few  impassioned  moments 
in  the  darkness  of  the  tunnel  —  how  far  away,  and  dim  and 
unreal,  those  kisses  seemed  now!  Yet  she  was  the  same 
girl,  and  there  was  something  in  her  manner  even  now  which 
showed  that  she  might  become  again  at  any  moment  the 
careless,  laughing  girl  she  had  been  that  day.  Everything 
was  there  except  —  except  his  own  belief  that  she  shared 
with  him  a  secret  emotion.  He  could  not  believe  that  now. 

Apparently  she  did  like  him;  he  no  longer  feared  her 
mockery.  But  if  this  chance  encounter  was  not  a  joke  to 
her,  still  it  was  only  a  lark.  She  had  other  friends,  other 
pleasures ;  and  so  had  he.  Each  would  go  back  to  his  own 
world.  It  would  remain  only  an  interesting  memory  for 
both  of  them. 

He  realized  that  his  arm,  upon  which  her  hand  lay  lightly, 
was  fixed  in  a  crook  of  wooden  stiffness.  Was  he  afraid 
of  her  ?  No !  Had  he  ceased  to  like  her  ?  Not  exactly.  It 
was  only  that  he  did  not  know  her.  That  was  the  trouble. 
She  had  become  a  stranger. 

The  car  stopped,  and  they  got  on.  She  began  to  make 
casual  conversation.  He  tried  to  talk.  .  .  .  But  how  could 
he  talk  when  he  could  not  speak  freely  ?  He  wanted  to  ask 
her  about  herself.  But  his  question  would  be  a  confession 
of  his  misunderstanding  of  her  status;  he  flushed  at  the 
thought,  and  the  sentences  he  was  addressing  to  her  became 
confused,  and  only  straightened  themselves  out  by  the  aid 
of  his  utmost  determination. 

She  ought  to  realize  that  some  explanation  was  required. 
If  her  present  friendliness  was  in  good  faith,  she  would  set 
herself  right  about  the  mystery  of  her  stenographic  masque- 


Explanations  311 

rade.  But  she  seemed  to  behave  as  though  nothing  in  the 
least  unusual  had  occurred.  .  .  .  Well,  he  would  pretend 
that  there  was  nothing  strange  about  it  to  him,  either.  He 
could  keep  it  up  as  long  as  she  could. 

They  were  behaving  a  little  like  two  lovers  who  have  had 
a  quarrel,  which  neither  will  admit  has  actually  oc 
curred.  .  .  . 

She  enjoyed  the  play,  and  he  enjoyed  her  pleasure  as 
much  as  the  play  itself.  She  clutched  his  hand  in  an  emo 
tion  of  impersonal  delight  when  the  soldier  explained  that 
his  revolver  was  loaded  with  chocolate  instead  of  bullets; 
and  somehow  that  touch  soothed,  if  it  did  not  quite  allay, 
his  troubled  thoughts  concerning  her.  He  took  her  hand 
fearlessly  when  the  curtain  rose  again,  and  she  yielded  it 
with  a  quiet  warmth  in  which  there  seemed  to  be  implicit 
all  the  mutual  understanding  that  he  had  but  lately  deemed 
a  vain  illusion.  He  said  to  himself,  "  She  does  love  me !  " — 
and  then,  more  reasonably,  "  We  really  like  each  other,  and 
it  will  be  fun  to  go  to  plays  and  things  together." 

But  he  refused  to  be  deceived  by  her  enthusiastic  enjoy 
ment  of  the  play  into  regarding  her  as  a  fellow  adept  in  the 
Shavian  mysteries.  He  realized  for  the  first  time  how  much 
sheer  unintellectual  fun  there  was  in  a  Shaw  play  —  and  how 
much  plain  hearty  common  sense  such  as  anybody  ought  to 
enjoy.  He  perceived,  and  liked,  the  spiritual  robustness 
which  rose  to  the  call  of  Shaw's  humour;  but  that  did  not 
mean  that  she  necessarily  realized  or  approved  the  ultimate 
significance  of  his  ideas.  Not  that  it  made  any  difference! 

"  Do  you  think,"  he  asked,  as  they  left  the  theatre,  "  that 
Shaw  overdoes  this  idea  of  the  man-hunting  woman?" 

She  laughed  lightly.  *'  I  suppose  not,"  she  said,  and  took 
his  arm.  "  Let's  walk  home,  if  you  don't  mind.  I'd 
rather." 

3 

He  wanted  to  talk  to  her.  He  couldn't.  The  soft  touch 
of  her  hand  on  his  arm  was  exasperating.  It  either  meant 


312  Moon-Calf 

something  or  nothing.  Was  she  merely  a  young  lady  whom 
he  had  taken  to  the  theatre,  or  —  ?  His  thoughts  surged  dis 
tractedly  between  love  and  a  kind  of  hatred. 

He  could  endure  the  suspense  no  longer.  "  What,"  he 
demanded,  *'  were  you  doing  in  your  uncle's  office  the  other 
day?" 

She  looked  up  at  him.  "  Seeing  what  it  was  like,"  she 
said. 

As  an  explanation  that  left  much  to  be  desired.  But  it 
had  a  note  of  calm  intimacy  which  encouraged  him  to  further 
inquiry. 

"  Well,  and  what  was  it  like? " 

"  Rather  interesting,"  she  said.  Then  she  met  his 
puzzled  glance,  and  exclaimed,  "  Oh !  don't  you  know  ?  I 
supposed  Uncle  Jim  was  telling  you  all  about  me  there  in  the 
library." 

'*  We  were  talking  about  politics,"  he  said. 

She  laughed.  "  My  egotism  again !  Well,  you  see,  I 
think  maybe  I'm  going  to  be  a  stenographer.  Uncle  Jim 
said  I  could  try  it.  He's  very  patient  with  my  vagaries." 

"  But  why  a  stenographer  ?  " 

"I  don't  know  —  I  just  want  to  do  something.  It  may 
be  a  foolish  idea.  Everybody  seems  to  think  so." 

That  was  interesting.  A  daughter  of  the  bourgeoisie 
who  wanted  to  "  do  something."  But  Felix  did  not  permit 
his  enthusiasm  to  show  itself. 

He  merely  asked : 

"Where  did  you  learn  to  run  a  typewriter?" 

"  At  the  business  college  here  this  winter.  I  learned 
stenography,  too.  It's  easy  —  and  more  fun  than  the  things 
you  learn  at  college." 

"  Have  you  been  to  college  ?  " 

*'  Oberlin.  A  terrible  place.  I  only  went  two  terms.' — 
And  a  part  of  another."  Her  hand  slipped  from  his  arm, 
and  she  involuntarily  quickened1  her  step,  and  then  halted 
for  him  half  a  pace  ahead. 

"  Why  did  you  stop  ?  " 


Explanations  313 

"Got  expelled,"  she  said  laughingly.  "  That's  why  I 
came  here  to  Uncle  Jim's.  To  start  life  anew !  " 

*'  What  did  you  get  expelled  for?  "  he  asked,  pursuing  his 
inquisition  relentlessly. 

"  Breaking  the  rules,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  which  seemed 
to  point  out  that  his  question  answered  itself. 

"  I've  never  been  to  college,"  said  Felix,  "  and  I  don't 
know  what  one  gets  expelled  for.  I'm  curious  to  know." 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  the  final  thing  was  when  I  climbed 
out  of  the  window  and  went  skating,  and  came  back  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  found  the  window  locked  and 
couldn't  get  in.  That's  the  sort  of  thing  you  get  expelled 
for  —  if  you  happen  to  be  a  girl.  And  if  it  hadn't  been  that, 
if  would  have  been  something  else. —  I  didn't  care,"  she 
added  defiantly,  "  I  was  sick  of  the  place. —  And  now,"  she 
said,  taking  his  arm  again,  "  are  you  satisfied  ?  Or  do  you 
want  to  write  to  the  Dean  and  get  a  list  of  all  the  other 
rules  I  broke?  I  think,  first  and  last,  I  broke  them  all." 

"  Good  for  you !  "  said  Felix  enthusiastically.  Yet  there 
was  something  about  her  way  of  telling  the  story  which 
made  him  a  little  impatient.  If  she  had  been  a  boy,  he 
thought,  she  would  have  related  the  epic  of  her  expulsion 
with  great  pride,  and  in  full  detail.  Were  girls  never  proud 
of  their  rebellions?  He  admired  in  Joyce  the  fact  that  she 
had  rebelled;  it  justified  his  conviction  that  there  was  some 
thing  free  and  fearless  about  her.  She  had  doubtless  re 
belled  magnificently!  Well,  why  didn't  she  talk  about  it 
magnificently  ?  It  wasn't  as  if  she  couldn't  expect  complete 
sympathy  from  him.  She  might  have  to  pretend  to  her 
folks  that  she  was  ashamed  of  it  all,  but  why  pretend  to 
him? 

"  I'm  glad  you  raised  a  little  hell,"  he  said. 
She  refused  to  respond  to  his  enthusiasm.  "  Oh,  I  don't 
know,"  she  said.  "  It  isn't  supposed  to  be  the  thing,  if 
you're  a  girl,  to  be  expelled  from  college.  I  certainly  heard 
enough  about  it  at  the  time.  I  was  made  to  feel  like  the 
world's  worst  criminal." 


314  Moon-Calf 

"  I  don't  see  why  a  girl  isn't  as  much  entitled  to  her  fling 
as  a  boy,"  he  said. 

She  regarded  him  gravely  as  if  to  ask  if  he  really  meant 
that.  His  look  steadfastly  maintained  that  he  really  did. 

"  The  things  they  make  a  fuss  about  are  such  little  things," 
she  began. 

He  interrupted.  "  No,  that  isn't  the  point.  They  are 
such  human  things.  What  they  do  at  such  a  place  is  to 
deny  you  the  right  to  be  a  human  being.  A  girl  isn't  sup 
posed  to  be  a  human  being." 

"  No  —  she  isn't,"  agreed  the  girl. 

"  They  are  supposed  to  be  angels,"  pursued  Felix. 

"  Young  ladies,"  corrected  Joyce,  with  a  note  of  scorn 
which  he  hailed  with  inward  approval. 

"  Which  seems  to  be,"  he  said,  "  an  elaborate  pretence 
of  not  being  human." 

"  Of  not  being  a  girl"  said  Joyce.  "  I  know  how  not  to 
be,  but—" 

'*  It  doesn't  seem  sensible  ?  " 

"  It  isn't  easy.     I  try.     But  I  forget." 

"  You  would,"  he  said.     "  You  are  a  real  human  being." 

"  I  don't  know  exactly  what  you  mean  by  human  being," 
she  said.  "  But  I  am  a  girl.  And  I  simply  can't  stand 
being  cooped  up  and  watched  over  by  a  lot  of  old  maids. 
It  drives  me  to  desperation  —  I  just  have  to  break  their  silly 
old  rules." 

Felix  wanted  to  keep  the  discussion  on  the  plane  of 
generalities,  but  she  descended  vivaciously  into  amusing  par 
ticulars.  "  And  those  rules !  "  she  said.  "  You  wouldn't 
believe — "  She  went  on  to  tell  him  of  prohibitions  and 
penalties  which  he  did  find  sufficiently  incredible,  in  the 
light  of  twentieth-century  ideas. 

"  But  let's  not  talk  about  it,"  she  concluded.  "  It's  over 
for  good,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned  —  and  I'm  sure  you're 
not  interested  in  such — " 

"  I'm  interested  in  you"  he  said. 


Explanations  315 


She  was  silent 

In  that  silence  there  was  a  revelation  for  him  which  he 
felt  she  shared  —  a  moment  of  utter  intimacy  such  as  no 
words  can  give.  They  both  emerged  from  it  a  little  dazed 
and  embarrassed.  They  spoke  quickly,  and  as  if  not  quite 
knowing  what  they  were  saying. 

"  Tell  me  some  more  about  yourself,"  he  commanded. 

"  The  rest  of  my  history  ?  Well  —  I've  always  been  a 
sort  of  tomboy.  My  mother  died  when  I  was  little,  and  my 
father  always  let  me  do  anything  I  liked.  We  lived  in  a 
little  town  in  Ohio.  And  then  my  father  failed  in  business, 
and  —  and  died.  And  I  went  to  live  with  my  Uncle  Edward 
in  Columbus.  He  is  religious  —  very  much  so;  he  regards 
me  as  a  limb  of  Satan.  And  I  must  say  that  I've  sometimes 
behaved  like  one !  "  She  laughed.  '*  Uncle  Edward  sent 
me  to  Oberlin  —  and  that  didn't  work  out  —  and  I  came 
here.  Uncle  Jim  is  nice,  don't  you  think?  In  some  ways 
he's  like  my  father.  But  no,  not  really  —  my  father  was 
never  very  practical.  Do  you  know  what  Uncle  Jim  says  ?  " 
She  laughed.  "  That  all  I  need  is  to  get  married.  I  even 
think  he's  got  the  man  picked  out ! "  She  met  Felix's 
startled  glance.  "  Oh,  not  you !  "  she  laughed. 

"  And  what,"  asked  Felix  huskily,  "  do  you  think  of 
Uncle  Jim's  candidate  ?  " 

She  stopped,  and  stamped  her  foot.  "  I  hate  him !  "  she 
declared  passionately,  and  then  turned  to  him.  "  Now  that's 
everything.  You  know  my  past,  present,  and  possible 
future.  And  now,"  irrelevantly,  "  are  you  going  to  be 
friends  with  me  again  ?  " 

In  the  darkness  Felix  put  his  arms  about  her.  "  Not 
triends,"  he  said,  and  drew  her  to  him. 

His  kiss  was  a  solemn  defiance  of  Uncle  Jim  and  the  un- 
cnown  candidate. 


XL  Reactions 


66  ~m   "VO  you  really  love  me,  Felix?"  she  asked,  stand- 
I        I  mg  before  him  with  her  arms  upon  his  shoulders. 

Y^J  "I  do,  too.  Isn't  it  strange?  Dear!"  And 
they  kissed  again.  .  .  . 

"  But,  Heavens,  wasn't  it  sudden !  "  she  said,  as  they  went 
on  slowly. 

"  Not  so  very,"  he  said.  "  I  think  we  made  a  very  re 
spectable  delay,  considering  that  we  both  knew  it  from  the 
first  minute." 

"  I  didn't,"  she  said. 

"You  didn't!" 

"  Well,  I  knew  something  had  happened,  but  I  didn't 
know  just  what.  I  liked  you.  And  I  kept  saying  to  my 
self,  Now  don't  make  a  fool  of  yourself! — -Did  I  make  a 
fool  of  myself,  Felix?  Should  I  have  waited,  and  been 
demure  and  so  forth  ?  I  don't  mean  now.  That  was  —  in 
evitable.  But  on  the  roller  coaster.  I  was  hoping  you 
would  kiss  me.  But  afterwards  I  thought  I  shouldn't  have 
let  you.  I  kind  of  worried  about  those  kisses  all  day  yes 
terday." 

"  You  darling,"  said  Felix. 

"  Perhaps  I  shouldn't  even  be  telling  you  what  I  feel  now. 
But  I'm  like  that.  I  do  whatever  I  want  to,  and  think  about 
it  afterward.  Do  you  think  maybe  I'm  just  a  silly  girl,  to 
fall  in  love  so  quickly?  I  don't  feel  silly.  I  feel—" 

"  I  think  you're  glorious,"  said  Felix. 

"If  we  had  known  each  other  for  years  and  years, 
perhaps  we  wouldn't  know  each  other  any  better,  after  all, 
than  we  do  now.  But  I  don't  care,  anyway.  We  love 
each  other.  .  .  ." 

316 


Reactions  317 

"  That's  the  important  thing/'  said  Felix. 

They  lingered  on  Uncle  Jim's  porch,  prolonging  their 
farewell.  "  When  can  I  see  you  again  —  tomorrow  night  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  No,"  she  said,  frowning  and  shaking  her  head.  "  Not 
tomorrow.  I'm  sorry.  Wednesday?" 

So  it  was  agreed. 


Felix  was  half  way  home  before  there  crept  into  his 
mind  the  thought  —  of  all  thoughts  the  most  hateful,  the' 
most  calculated  to  curdle  the  dreamy  ecstasy  of  young  and 
happy  love- — the  thought  of  money.  .  .  . 

Before  he  thought  of  that,  he  had  been  as  the  gods.  He 
saw  himself  and  his  beloved  wandering  joyously  hand  in 
hand  through  a  life  which  was  an  infinite  vista  of  Saturday 
afternoons  on  the  Island  and  Monday  evenings  at  the 
theatre,  with  long  walks  in  between.  His  imagination  was 
completely  happy  in  the  contemplation  of  such  a  life,  until 
with  sudden  perversity  it  strayed  off  that  happy  path  through 
a  gate  —  into  a  little  house.  .  .  . 

It  was  the  same  little  house  that  he  had  inhabited  with 
her  in  fancy  after  their  first  meeting.  But  now  the  imagin 
ing  of  it  brought  a  pang  —  of  envy,  of  anger,  of  frustration. 
The  trouble  was  that  now  he  wanted  to  make  it  real.  .  .  . 
He  wanted  very  much  to  make  it  real.  Only  when  he 
turned  to  the  Port  Royal  of  reality  to  think  of  such  a  little 
house,  it  became  too  drab  and  dingy  a  picture  —  too  much 
like  the  houses  on  the  street  he  lived  in.  The  thought  of 
himself  and  her  in  such  a  house  as  he  could  actually  pro 
vide,  was  too  painful.  Some  of  the  glory  faded  from  the 
picture  of  their  love  at  the  very  thought.  No  —  not  that 
—  not  the  life  he  had  seen  and  known  —  the  dreary,  frowsy 
life  of  a  wage-slave's  mate.  .  .  .  No. 

He  turned  again  to  the  real  pure  idyllic  fancy,  and  from 
thence  to  the  unspoiled  joys  of  remembering  the  swift 
sweet  moments  of  love  that  they  had  already  garnered. 


318  Moon-Calf 

But  now  he  was  not  content  to  enjoy  these  memories  in 
solitude.  He  wanted  to  share  them  with  some  one.  He 
turned  his  steps  toward  Tom  Alden's  house.  .  .  .  He  would 
tell  Tom  about  her. 

He  routed  Tom  from  his  garret  by  loud  rings  at  the  bell. 
He  had  seen  a  light  in  the  dormer  windows,  and  knew  that 
Tom  was  still  up.  Tom  appeared  at  last,  blinking. 

"  I  had  fallen  asleep  on  the  couch,"  he  said.  "  Come  on 
up!" 

The  sheets  of  a  letter  lay  on  the  floor  by  Tom's  couch. 
"  I  went  to  sleep  reading  it,"  he  said,  gathering  up  the  pages. 

There  was  a  secret  in  Tom's  life,  approached  and  veered 
off  from  in  conversation  so  often  that  it  had  been  com 
pletely  circumnavigated,  and  its  boundaries  were  familiar  to 
Felix.  Here  it  was,  the  fringe  of  it,  again. 

"Is  it  from  your  mysterious  sweetheart?"  asked  Felix 
shyly,  emboldened  by  his  own  adventure  to  trench  upon  the 
untold  secret. 

"  No,"  said  Tom,  ruffling  his  hair.  "  But  it's  about 
her."  He  sat  down  on  the  couch,  groped  on  the  floor  for  his 
corncob  pipe,  lighted  it,  and  said: 

"  She's  an  actress.  At  any  rate,  she  had  a  part  in  a  play. 
I  was  in  Chicago,  and  I  met  her  at  an  after-theatre  supper- 
party  of  Doyle  Clavering's.  I  was  bored.  I  couldn't  talk 
their  talk."  * 

"  Naturally,"  said  Felix. 

"  So  I  thought  I'd  try  talking  my  own.  I  commenced  to 
tell  the  girl  next  to  me  about  Nietzsche." 

Felix  laughed.  "  You  would !  "  he  said.  "  And  how  did 
she  take  it?" 

"  She  answered  me  with  a  quotation  from  *  Thus  Spake 
Zarathustra.' " 

"Well!" 

"  That's  just  the  way  I  felt.  An  actress  who  quotes 
Nietzsche!  .  .  .  And  I  was  lonely.  It  was  just  after  Madge 
and  I  had  separated.  I  fell  in  love  with  her." 

"  Of  course !  "  said  Felix.     A  part  of  his  mind  was  wish- 


Reactions  319 

ing  that  he  had  been  right  in  that  wild  surmise  about  Joyce 
and  Bernard  Shaw :  suppose  she  had  quoted  "  Man  and 
Superman.".  .  .  He  shook  his  head,  banishing  the  thought. 
"  I  fell  in  love  with  her,"  said  Tom  thoughtfully.  "  And 
she  with  me.  It  happened  all  in  a  moment."  (Yes,  Felix 
thought,  things  do  happen  like  that!)  "  We  had  a  wonder 
ful  time  together.  For  a  month."  (Why  only  a  month, 
Felix  wondered?)  '*  It  was  too  beautiful  to  last,  we  agreed. 
And  when  we  parted  we  said,  Let's  not  write  letters. —  It 
was  too  precious  to  spoil  by  attempting  to  prolong  it  in 
mere  words.  .  .  .  But  I  did  write/'  (Of  course!  thought 
Felix.)  "  I  wrote  to  her  in  care  of  Doyle  —  I  didn't  know 
where  she  was.  And  I  had  just  mailed  my  letter  when  I 
got  one  from  her,  forwarded  by  Clavering.  .  .  .  We've 
been  writing  ever  since."  There  was  a  long  pause,  and 
Felix  waited  for  the  story's  evidently  almost-tragic  conclu 
sion.  "  She's  in  Chicago  again,  and  I'm  going  there  next 
week  to  meet  her." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix,  still  not  understanding  why  Tom  was 
so  gloomy  about  it. 

Tom  had  risen  and  was  searching  along  the  bookcase. 
He  found  a  book,  brought  it  back,  and  began  to  read  sen 
tences  quietly,  with  brooding  pauses,  from  a  page: 

"  Every  moment  some  form  grows  perfect  in  hand  or 
face;  some  tone  on  the  hills  or  the  sea  is  choicer  than  the 
rest;  some  mood  of  passion  or  insight  or  intellectual  excite 
ment  is  irresistibly  real  and  attractive  to  us, —  for  that  mo 
ment  only.  Not  the  fruit  of  experience,  but  experience 
itself,  is  the  end.  .  .  .  How  shall  we  pass  most  swiftly 
from  point  to  point,  and  be  present  always  at  the  focus 
where  the  greatest  number  of  vital  forces  unite  in  their 
purest  energy?  .  .  .  While  all  melts  under  our  feet,  we  may 
well  grasp  at  any  exquisite  passion,  or  any  contribution  to 
knowledge  that  seems  by  a  lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit 
free  for  a  moment,  or  any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange 
dyes,  strange  colours,  and  curious  odours,  or  the  work  of 
the  artist's  hands,  or  the  face  of  one's  friend.  Not  to  dis- 


320  Moon-Calf 

criminate  every  moment  some  passionate  attitude  in  those 
about  us,  and  in  the  very  brilliancy  of  their  gifts  some  tragic 
dividing  of  forces  on  their  ways,  is,  on  this  short  day  of  frost 
and  sun,  to  sleep  before  evening." 

He  closed  the  book  and  dropped  it  abruptly  to  the  floor. 
"  We  were  like  that,"  he  said,  "  We  lived  that  philosophy, 
a  year  ago." 

He  relighted  his  pipe.  *'  I  have  just  had  a  letter  from 
Doyle."  He  opened  the  letter  and  searched  for  the  passage, 
while  Felix  rose  and  walked  about,  his  mind  seeking  to  clear 
itself  from  the  drug-like  beauty  of  those  words  to  which  he 
had  been  listening  —  those  words,  which  were  like  a  per 
fumed  breeze  out  of  nowhere,  or  out  of  some  strange  life 
lived  before,  affecting  him  with  a  strange  nostalgia.  Tom 
had  commenced  to  read: 

"  Roxie  is  here,  blooming  and  bubbling  as  usual  —  a 
year  younger  rather  than  older.  A  delightful  child!  I 
sincerely  congratulate  you.  I  would  have  written  sooner, 
but  she  only  told  us  of  the  engagement  last  night.  Are  you 
going  to  settle  down  in  Port  Royal,  or  move  here?  Of 
course,  there's  always  New  York.  Roxie  is  very  enthusias 
tic  about  New  York.  But  she  refuses  to  confide  her  plans 
to  us  —  being  only  a  shade  less  secretive  than  yourself." 

Tom  laid  the  letter  down,   and  lighted  another  match. 

"But  do  you  really  think  she  said  that?"  was  all  Felix 
could  think  of  to  say.  After  the  music  of  the  moment 
before,  this  did  sound  incongruously  like  the  familiar  strains 
of  "  Home,  Sweet  Home."  He  did  not  want  to  believe  that 
a  girl  who  had  believed  —  who  had  lived  —  that  other  life 
should  talk  about  being  "  engaged."  .  .  . 

"  Of  course  she  said  it,  or  Doyle  wouldn't  say  so.  The 
only  question  is,  does  she  mean  it  ?  I  shouldn't  wonder.  .  .  . 
Women  like  to  be  settled,  to  know  where  they  are  at.  ... 
But  she  wasn't  just  a  woman  a  year  ago.  She  was  a  free 
spirit. —  Doesn't  look  much  like  free  spirits  now,  does  it, 
Felix?  I'm  wondering  if  I  want  to  be  one  myself,  now." 
He  rose  in  his  turn  and  walked  up  and  down  the  room. 


Reactions  32 1 

"If  she  wants  to  marry  me,  Felix,  if  that  is  what  she 
really  wants,  I  shall  want  that,  too.  I  shall  dream  the  old 
dream  once  more.  In  spite  of  all  I  know  about  it  —  the 
perpetual  bondage,  the  mutual  slavery  that  crucifies  two 
souls  —  in  spite  of  everything,  I  shall  want  the  happiness 
that  one  always  hopes  to  get  that  way.  I  shall  forget  that 
I  ever  wanted  freedom. —  I  don't  blame  her.  I  blame 
human  nature.  I  feel  it  in  myself,  the  instinct  that  says, 
Hold  out  your  hands  and  let  them  be  tied,  handcuffed  to  hers 
until  death  do  you  part,  and  you  will  be  happy !  —  I  believe 
it,  even  now.  I  merely  know  that  it  isn't  so.  It  isn't  so, 
Felix!  .  .  .  If  she  knows  it  too,  we  shall  be  strong  enough 
to  resist.  But  if  she  doesn't  know  it,  if  she  doesn't  want 
freedom  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  we  are  lost. 
—  But  I  needn't  worry  you  about  it.  Come,  let's  have  a 
drink.  I  shall  get  straightened  out  in  my  mind,  I  hope, 
before  next  week." 

Felix  did  not  tell  Tom  about  Joyce  that  night. 

3 

"  It  is  a  rare  and  happy  lover,"  says  the  learned  Winckler 
in  his  History  of  Love,  "  who  does  not  find  in  himself 
emotions  hostile  to  his  passion;  and  it  is  perhaps  a  mere 
accident  of  temperament,  and  not  by  any  means  a  reflection 
}f  the  actual  facts  of  the  situation,  that  these  emotions 
should  express  themselves  now  as  a  timorous  and  selfish 
:aution,  and  again  as  a  profound  unselfish  conviction  of 
:he  duty  of  renunciation ;  now  as  hateful  doubts  of  the  fitness 
>f  his  beloved,  and  again  as  a  generous  fear  of  his  own  un- 
vorthiness.  It  is,  once  more,  doubtful  if  the  lover's  strict 
ipprehension  of  the  regard  or  disregard  due  to  institution, 
:eremony  and  current  ethics  is  so  much  a  matter  of  principle 
is  of  temperamental  opportunism,  since  these  same  hostile 
motions  may  appear  with  equal  felicity  in  the  guise  of  a 
onventional  moral  scruple  against  possession,  when  the  facts 
>f  the  case  permit,  or  in  the  guise  of  a  libertinism  which 
vades  all  but  the  most  superficial  possibilities  of  such  pos- 


322  Moon-Calf 

session.  In  a  word,  whether  it  appear  as  a  ridiculous  puri- 
tanism,  a  conventianal  propriety,  or  a  heartless  profligacy, 
the  lover's  hesitation  would  appear  to  spring  from  the  same 
(so  far  unexplored)  emotional  sources.  It  should  be  added 
that  the  complexity  and  variety  and  beauty,  the  tragedy  and 
melodrama  and  farce,  of  civilized  love  are  apparently 
created,  with  but  an  adventitious  aid  from  circumstance, 
out  of  the  shock  and  struggle  of  this  obscure  emotional 
warfare." 

But  Felix  had  not  read  the  learned  Winckler;  and  it  is 
doubtful  in  any  case  if  he  would  have  been  able  to  apply 
these  sayings  to  himself.  He  was  not  aware  of  any  internal 
struggle.  He  was  at  most  aware  sometimes,  when  he  was 
not  with  Joyce,  of  a  discrepancy  between  her  and  a  not  very 
distinct  ideal  of  his  imagination.  But  that  ideal,  as  he  re 
membered  the  warm  reality  of  his  beloved,  grew  dim  and 
pale  and  seemed,  when  he  met  the  reality  again,  to  fade  and 
perish  utterly. 

He  was  in  love!  It  was  a  fact  too  wonderful  to  palter 
with.  .  .  .  And  yet,  even  as  he  thought  of  her,  his  mind 
braced  itself,  would  not  quite  surrender  to  the  profound 
restfulness  of  happiness,  but  held  itself  erect  and  proud,  as 
though  indeed  his  soul  perceived  in  her  a  beautiful  and 
sweet  antagonist. 


XLI  Argument 


WHEN  Felix  called  at  Joyce's  house  on  Wednesday 
evening,   she  was  ready,  dressed  in  a  middie- 
blouse  and  walking  skirt.     She  met  him  in  the 
hall  and  hurried  out  with  him  impatiently.     4<  Thank  God !  " 
she  said,  "  I'm  free  from  that  house  and  those  people  for  one 
evening !  "     She  was  flushed  and  in  a  temper,  and  Felix 
sensed  some  kind  of  family  quarrel  had  been  going  on. 

He  was  a  little  startled,  too,  at  seeing  her  for  the  first 
time  in  this  rebellious  role.  He  had  had  a  romantic  fancy 
of  her  in  revolt,  but  the  reality  was  different.  There  was 
nothing  poetically  beautiful  about  her  anger.  It  made  her 
eyes  shine  and  her  cheeks  glow,  but  it  gave  a  hard  look  to 
her  face,  and  her  chin  had  a  dangerous  rather  than  a  de 
fiant  tilt.  There  was  no  tenderness  in  her,  and  very  little 
girlishness  —  she  looked  positively  boyish.  And  she  was 
not  pretty,  but  beautiful  —  with  a  strange,  smouldering,  sullen 
beauty.  ...  In  her  fighting  mood  she  must  be  a  difficult 
customer,  Felix  reflected.  But  it  was  hard  to  think  of  any 
one  quarrelling  with  Jim  Bassett. 

"  I  thought  you  and  Uncle  Jim  got  along  all  right  to 
gether,"  he  hazarded. 

"  It  wasn't  so  much  Uncle  Jim,"  said  the  girl.  "  It's 
Aunt  Hattie."  She  was  swinging  along  with  an  even  more 
masculine  stride  than  usual,  and  becoming  calmer  as  she 
put  her  repressed  emotions  into  muscular  exertion.  "  Uncle 
Jim's  not  bad  if  he's  let  alone.  But  he  thinks  that  every 
thing  she  thinks  is  gospel. —  Do  you  know  how  to  run  a 
motorboat  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Felix. 

323 


324  Moon-Calf 

"  Well,  come  along  and  I'll  teach  you.  Uncle  Jim's  got 
one  down  at  the  boat-house.  He  taught  me  to  run  it  when 
I  was  here  last  summer.  I've  got  the  key.  We'll  take  a 
little  ride  up  the  river." 

Felix  believed  that  he  believed  in  the  equality  of  the 
sexes,  but  he  was  a  little  ashamed  for  at  least  one  fleeting 
moment,  at  the  boat-house,  that  it  was  she  who  took  effi 
cient  charge  of  affairs,  rather  than  he.  At  the  same  time, 
he  was  a  little  relieved  to  find  that  she  did  not  expect  him 
to  understand  the  intricacies  of  a  gasoline  motor.  She 
quickly  overhauled  the  engine,  filled  the  gasoline-tank  and  the 
oil-cups ;  and  with  some  slight  assistance  from  him,  under  her 
directions,  the  boat  was  disengaged  from  the  landing  and 
started  noisily  out  upon  the  slow  waters  of  the  river.  It 
was  a  moony  night. 

"  I'll  steer,"  she  said.  "  I  know  the  river.  Come  up  here 
and  put  your  arm  around  me  and  say  a  kind  word  or  two. 
I'm  all  riled  up." 

He  obeyed,  but  her  authoritarian  air,  even  though  miti 
gated  by  a  whimsical  smile  and  a  kind  of  rough  tenderness 
in  her  voice,  did  not  please  him.  In  fact,  it  irritated  him. 

"  What's  the  matter?  "  he  asked. 

"  J.  H.,"  she  said  briefly. 

But  she  said  it  in  a  tone  which  he  had  heard  her  use  only 
once  before,  when  she  had  said,  "  I  hate  him !  * —  and  he 
knew  whom  she  meant. 

His  instinctive  feeling  was  resentment.  J.  H.  had  been 
settled  and  put  out  of  the  way  last  Monday  night.  What 
right  had  she  to  be  bothered  by  any  thoughts  of  J.  H.  ? 

"  J.  H.  is  Uncle  Jim's  candidate  for  your  affections, 
I  take  it?  "  he  said  in  the  tone  of  one  who  courteously  shows 
an  interest. 

'*  Aunt  Hattie's,  rather.  She  put  Uncle  Jim  up  to  it. 
It's  all  her  idea.  Uncle  Jim  is  a  big  baby." 

"  Well  ? "  asked  Felix,  after  a  silence.  He  was  look 
ing  at  her  hands  on  the  wheel ;  they  had  seemed  all  softness 
to  his  touch,  but  now  they  seemed  all  firm  muscle  —  they 


Argument  325 

were,  like  the  curt,  explosive  phrases  of  her  speech,  a  part 
of  her  new  personality. 

"  He  was  there  last  night,"  she  said  tensely.  "  That's 
why  I  couldn't  see  you.  They  invited  him  to  dinner." 
She  jerked  the  boat  sharply  about,  and  headed  it  upstream. 

"  Well,"  said  Felix,  letting  his  fingers  play  with  her  bare, 
sweet-fleshed  arm,  "  they  can't  make  you  marry  him." 

"  No,  but  they  can  make  it  mighty  unpleasant  for  me.  .  .  . 
You  see,  I  played  around  a  lot  with  him  this  winter.  I've 
no  doubt  Aunt  Hattie  is  right  in  saying  that  I  encouraged 
him.  It's  my  own  fault,  I  suppose.  .  .  .  She  says  I  don't 
know  my  own  mind." 

"  Do  you  ?  "  asked  Felix.  It  was  the  tone  of  a  disinter 
ested,  amused,  unprejudiced  byestander. 

She  looked  at  him  and  smiled  uncertainly.  *'  It's  all  very 
well  for  you  to  take  it  so  calmly,"  she  said.  "  But  it's  no 
joke  to  me.  ...  I  was  upset  enough  about  his  coming, 
but  when  I  saw  him  appear  with  both  flowers  and  candy  — !  " 

"  Flowers  and  candy  ?  "     Felix  repeated  wonderingly. 

"  Yes.  Either  one  would  have  meant  nothing  in  par 
ticular.  But  both  — !  And  he  was  very  polite,  and  very 
very  respectful,  and  hellishly  nervous. —  And  so  am  I. 
Light  me  a  cigarette.  And  be  careful  where  you  throw  the 
tnatch.  Thank  you !  " 

She  puffed  on  the  cigarette. 
>/  "  I  didn't  know  you  smoked,"said  Felix, 
v/ "  Learned  it  at  college.     Only  thing  I  did  learn  there. 
Don't  interrupt,  I  want  to  get  this  off  my  chest. —  The  whole 
:hing  was  staged.     Aunt  Harriet  was  oh  so  sweet  to  us. 
\nd  Uncle  Jim  so  fondly  paternal.     And  J.  H. —  I  knew 
ic  was  going  to  propose."     She  threw  the  cigarette  over- 
)oard.     "  I  fought  hard  to  keep  from  being  left  alone  with 
lim ;  but  it  was  no  good.     So  I  thought  —  let  him  go  through 
vith  it."     Her  fingers  gripped  the  steering-wheel  savagely, 
ind  her  voice  was  vibrant.     "  Let  him  get   down   on   his 
:nees,  the  idiot,  and  take  what's  coming  to  him." 
"And  what  happened?"  asked  Felix,  stroking  her  arm. 


326  Moon-Calf 

*'  He  proposed  in  due  and  regular  form,  all  right." 

*'  And  what  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  Various  things.  I  said  I  was  surprised.  He  pointed 
out  that  I  needn't  have  been,  because  of  —  well,  because  of 
a  number  of  incidents.  I  said  he  had  misunderstood  me. 
He  argued  with  me  about  that.  We  had  a  regular  debate. 
Finally  I  got  mad  and  told  him  I  never  wanted  to  see  him 
again." 

Felix  patted  her  arm  a  little. 


She  looked  at  him  from  the  corner  of  her  eyes,  and  then 
back  at  the  channel.  "  Well,  I  must  say  you're  a  cool  one," 
she  remarked  quietly.  "  I  sit  here  and  tell  you  that  I've 
turned  down  a  flattering  proposal  of  marriage  —  for  your 
sake  —  and  you  take  it  as  a  perfect  matter  of  course.  Are 
girls  in  the  habit  of  throwing  suitors  downstairs  to  please 
you?" 

"Why  was  the  proposal  so  flattering?"  Felix  asked,  a 
little  more  coolly  still.  "  Is  he  rich?  " 

"  No-o.  Probably  he  will  be  some  day.  But  that's  not 
the  point.  He's  a  perfectly  nice  young  man." 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  hated  him." 

"  I  do.  And  that's  why  —  because  he  is  so  perfectly 
nice.  He  worships  the  ground  I  tread  on,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing.  And  once  we  were  married,  he'd  expect  me  to 
be  the  perfect  wife.  I  couldn't  smoke  cigarettes,  for 
instance.  He'd  be  shocked.  He  has  an  ideal  of  me  —  and 
I'd  have  to  live  up  to  that  ideal,  if  it  killed  me." 

"  Then  you  weren't  turning  him  down  for  my  sake,  after 
all,"  said  Felix.  "  You  were  doing  it  for  perfectly  selfish 
reasons." 

"I  like  that!  "she  said. 

"Well,  weren't  you?" 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  so !  "  she  cried,  in  a  tone  at  once  annoyed 
and  plaintive,  and  for  the  first  time  that  evening  lacking  in 
abrupt  certitude.  Her  next  words  came  more  softly :  "  And 


Argument  327 

perhaps  my  going  out  with  you  tonight  is  for  a  selfish  reason, 
Felix.  You  are  the  sort  of  person  to  whom  I  can  say  what 
I  really  think.  I  can  be  my  real  self  with  you.  Just 
selfishness,  I  suppose  —  ?  But  what's  the  use  of  thinking 
about  things  that  way?  It's  not  very  nice.  .  .  ." 

"  I  think  it  is,"  countered  Felix.  "  You've  paid  me  the 
highest  compliment  that  I  ever  received,  just  now." 

"What  — when?" 

"  In  saying  that  I  am  the  sort  of  person  with  whom  you 
can  be  your  real  self." 

"Oh  — that.     Well,  it's  true." 

"  It's  beautiful.  It  makes  me  very  happy  to  hear  you 
say  that." 

"  Happier  than  —  than  to  hear  me  say  I  love  you  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Felix.  (He  lied  —  for  there  was  a  note  in 
her  voice  when  she  said  those  words  that  went  tingling  all 
through  his  body.  But  he  was  not  going  to  admit  it.) 
"  Any  two  people  can  be  in  love,"  he  said.  "  It's  a  rarer 
thing  to  be  free.  If  I  make  you  feel  free  —  if  I  enable  you 
to  be  your  real  self  —  well,  I'd  rather  do  that  than  to  give 
you  the  mahogany  furniture  and  cut  glass  that  J.  H.  would 
give  you." 

She  bent  over  and  caressed  his  cheek  for  a  moment  with 
hers.  "But  I'm  not  sure,"  she  said  softly,  "that's  it's 
altogether  a  good  thing  for  people  to  be  their  real  selves. 
I'm  not  sure  that  I  like  my  real  self." 

"  I  like  it,"  he  said. 

"  Perhaps  you  don't  know  all  about  it.     Perhaps  some 

time  you  won't  feel  that  way Besides,  Felix,  what  is 

one's  real  self?  If  you  hadn't  come  into  Uncle  Jim's 
office  that  day,  I  would  probably  have  accepted  J.  H.  last 
night.  I  had  been  rather  intending  to.  And  it  wouldn't 
have  been  altogether  Aunt  Harriet's  doing  —  it  would  have 
been  I  that  did  it.  And  been  very  happy  about  it.  ...  And 
that  person  would  have  been  me.  Me,  Felix.  Because 
I'm  that  kind  of  person,  too." 

"And  would  you  have  been  the  Perfect  Wife?" 


328  Moon-Calf 

"  I  would  have  tried,  Felix.  I  would  have  wanted  to 
make  him  happy.  And  where  I  couldn't  quite  succeed  in 
being  his  ideal,  I  would  let  him  think  I  was.  I  would  make 
him  think  I  was." 

*'  Lie  to  him,  in  other  words." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  it's  easy  enough  to  lie." 

"  Real  happiness  can't  be  founded  on  lies,"  said  Felix 
soberly. 

"  Perhaps  not  real  happiness  —  whatever  that  is.  I've 
never  seen  any  of  that  kind.  But  there's  plenty  of  ordinary, 
every-day  happiness  founded  on  lies.  It's  the  commonest 
thing  in  the  world." 

"  Do  you  want  that  kind  of  happiness?  " 

"  I  don't  know  —  I  want  some  kind."  The  stubbornness 
vanished  from  her  voice  again  as  she  said,  looking  out  over 
the  moonlit  river,  '*  Isn't  it  a  lovely  night  ?  " 


It  was  a  lovely  night.  And  a  strange  conversation,  upon 
such  a  night!  Felix  wondered  at  himself  for  a  moment. 
He  wondered  why  the  moonlight  did  not  make  him  feel 
romantic;  but  the  truth  was,  its  silvery  light,  and  the  dark 
shore  slipping  past,  and  the  rhythmic  throbbing  of  the  en 
gine,  gave  him  a  feeling  of  detachment  from  mortal  affairs. 
He  felt  that  his  immediate  concerns,  and  hers,  were  of  no 
great  significance ;  and  he  and  Joyce  were  somehow  not  mere 
anxious  lovers,  but  beings  suspended  in  space,  between  sky 
and  water,  where  nothing  mattered  except  truth,  and  that 
beauty  which  is  the  same  as  truth.  .  .  . 

'*  I  can't  promise  you  ordinary  happiness,"  he  said  slowly. 
"  I  don't  want  it  for  myself,  and  I  don't  offer  it  to  you.  I 
think  we  ought  to  speak  plainly  about  this.  We  love  each 
other ;  but  are  we  ready  to  give  to  each  other  what  we  really 
want?" 

"  What  do  you  want  from  me,  Felix  ?  "  she  asked,  a  little 
awed. 

"  Something  better  than  just  ordinary,  every-day  happi- 


Argument  329 

ness,"  he  said.     '*  And  I  want  to  give  you  something  better. 
Only  I  want  to  be  sure  that  you  also  think  it  is  better." 
"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I'll  try  to  tell  you.  It's  hard,  because  —  well,  I  guess 
it's  because  I'm  afraid  if  you  know  what  I  think,  you  won't 
love  me  any  more." 

She  laughed.     "  Try  it !  "  she  said. 

"  I  don't  believe  in  most  of  the  things  that  other  people 
believe  in,"  he  began.  "  For  instance,  I  don't  believe  in  pri 
vate  property."  And  he  gave  her  a  brief  exposition  of 
Socialism,  freely  rendered,  with  a  touch  of  Anarchism  in  it. 
"  So  you  see,"  he  concluded,  *'  I  can't  put  my  heart  and 
soul  into  the  effort  to  own  things." 

"  I  know,"  she  said.  "  I  understand  that,  Felix.  My 
father  was  like  that,  about  money.  I  don't  care.  I  like 
you  that  way." 

"  And  then,"  he  said,  "  I  haven't  any  of  the  conventional 
religious  ideas.  I  don't  believe  in  God." 

"  We  won't  quarrel  about  that,"  she  said.     "  Go  on." 

"  And  I  don't  believe  in  the  conventional  ideas  of  mar 
riage" 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  " 

*'  Well,  there  is  a  conventional  idea  of  how  people  who 
are  in  love  with  each  other  ought  to  behave.  They  are  sup 
posed  to  own  each  other.  And  belong,  both  of  them,  to  a 
home.  .  .  ." 

"  Don't  you  believe  in  having  a  home  ?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  in  being  imprisoned  in  one.  And  that's 
what  it  comes  to.  A  wife  can't  go  out  and  earn  her  own 
living.  She  must  stay  at  home.  You  couldn't  be  a  stenog 
rapher  if  we  were  married.  It  wouldn't  be  respectable." 

*'  By  the  way,"  said  Joyce,  "  Pve  stopped  being  a  stenog 
rapher." 

Felix  was  startled.     "Why?" 

**  Because  Lucy  has  come  back." 

"  But  —  aren't  you  going  on  with  it  somewhere  else  ?  " 

*'  I  don't  know.     I'm  not  sure  that  I  want  to  earn  my  own 


330  Moon-Calf 

living.  The  truth  is,  I  wanted  to  work  because  I  thought  I 
would  be  free.  But  on  a  stenographer's  wages  I  can't  be 
free.  I'll  have  to  live  with  Uncle  Jim  anyway.  .  .  .  And 
I've  so  many  things  to  think  about.  Between  you  and  J.  H. 
I'd  be  making  mistakes  all  the  time  in  spelling.  ...  I'd 
rather  loaf.—  I  didn't  tell  J.  H.,  because  he  would  think  I 
was  coming  to  my  senses.  But  I  can  tell  you,  because  I 
think  you'll  like  me  anyway. —  You  see  I'm  not  your  ideal, 
Felix.  I'm  all  mixed  up." 

"  You  are  mixed  up,"  he  said,  "  because  you  still  believe 
in  conventional  ideas." 

"  Well,  tell  me  yours,  then." 

He  returned  to  the  exposition  of  his  principles.  .  .  . 

*'  But  people  have  to  get  married,"  she  protested. 

'*  Not  necessarily.     In  the  Future  — " 

"  But  this  isn't  the  future,  Felix." 

[<  The  future  must  begin  some  time.  It  has  already  begun 
for  some  people." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  Well,  I  wish  them  good 
luck  with  their  experiments.  But  I'm  not  that  kind  of  per 
son.  It  all  seems  rather  absurd  to  me." 


Felix  was  silent;  but  not  in  wrath.  He  was  looking  at 
the  shimmer  of  moonlight-edged  hair  about  her  face.  He 
was  wishing  that  it  was  not  his  duty  to  preach  to  her.  .  .  . 

"  Go  on,  Felix.  This  is  the  time  to  talk.  In  five  minutes 
we  will  arrive  at  our  destination,  and  then  we  must  stop 
arguing." 

"  I  didn't  know  we  had  a  destination,"  said  Felix. 

"  Our  destination  is  a  tiny  island  owned  by  Uncle  Jim 
Bassett.  It  has  a  cabin  on  it,  stocked  with  canned  things, 
and  a  stove  to  cook  them  on,  if  we  are  hungry.  And  there's 
not  a  living  soul  there,  Felix,  and  we'll  be  absolutely  out  of 
this  populous  world  for  three  hours." 

"Wonderful!  "said  Felix. 


Argument  33 1 

"  And  yet  you  pretend  that  you  don't  believe  in  private 
property ! " 

"  Under  capitalism  — "  he  began. 

"  Felix,"  she  said,  "  you  mustn't  think  I  mind  your  queer 
ideas.  I  like  crazy  ideas  —  and  crazy  people.  They're 
such  a  relief  from  the  J.  H.s  with  which  the  world  is  full  up. 
And  I  want  you  to  tell  me  all  about  them.  But  —  you 
mustn't  expect  me  to  —  take  all  of  them  seriously." 

"  That  is  just  what  I  do  expect,"  said  Felix,  sitting  up 
very  straight  beside  her.  "  My  ideas  are  not  a  matter  of 
entertainment  for  people  who  have  nothing  better  to  do  than 
listen  to  them.  I  am  not  talking  to  you  just  for  fun.  My 
ideas  are  serious  matters  to  me." 

"How  serious?"  she  asked  teasingly.  "If  you  had  to 
choose  between  your  sweetheart  and  your  principles,  which 
would  you  choose  ?  " 

'*  My  principles,"  he  said. 

She  laughed.     "  I  wonder !  " 

And  for  a  moment  he  burned  with  a  perverse  desire  to 
prove  to  her  the  truth  of  his  words. 


XLII  "If  young  hearts  were  not  so  clever3 


*  '"¥""  T  ERE  we  are,"  she  said,  and  headed  the  boat  in 
I  I  across  the  moonlit  water  to  a  low-lying  mass  of 

JL  JL  shrubs  and  trees  that  rose  to  their  left.  A  mo 
ment  later  the  boat  grounded  in  the  shallow  water,  and  they 
stopped  the  engine,  jumped  out  ankle  deep  into  the  water, 
and  shoved  the  boat  'safely  up  on  the  beach. 

Before  them,  fifty  yards  away,  was  the  little  cabin  of 
which  she  had  spoken.  About  it  was  a  cleared  space,  and 
all  around  that  a  wilderness  of  ancient  trees,  and  tall  reedy 
grass,  and  willows  slanting  to  the  water's  edge. 

"  Our  desert  island,"  said  Joyce,  stopping  on  the  path. 
"  Kiss  me,  Felix." 

Into  that  kiss  Felix  put  a  fierce  repentance  for  the  sorry 
thought  he  had  only  a  moment  since  harboured  against  her ; 
and  then,  in  her  sweetness,  in  the  sheer  delight  of  her  lips 
and  arms  and  breathing  breast,  forgot  all  such  thoughts. 
Here  was  peace  and  happiness. 

And  while  he  fumbled  at  the  lock  with  the  key  she  gave 
him,  she  turned  and  looked  out  into  the  moonlight-touched 
mystery  of  darkness  all  around  them,  and  held  out  her  arms 
to  it.  "  Isn't  it  wonderful,"  she  said  softly,  "  to  be  away 
from  all  the  world  —  just  you  and  I,  for  the  first  time.  .  .  . 
Oh,  I'm  so  happy !  " 


They  took  possession  of  the  cabin  like  happy  children. 
Not  because  they  were  hungry,  but  because  it  would  be  fun 
to  cook,  they  opened  some  tins  of  soup  and  vegetables,  and 
Felix  went  out  to  gather  the  sticks  washed  up  on  the  shore 

332 


Young  Hearts  333 

and  dried  in  the  sun.  He  strayed  far  afield  for  his  third 
armful,  and  was  just  nearing  the  cabin  when  she  came  out 
to  call  him.  "  That's  enough,"  she  said.  "  You've  brought 
enough  wood  to  keep  us  going  a  week.  Everything's  ready, 
come  on  in."  She  had  on  an  apron,  and  her  golden  hair 
was  tousled  about  her  face.  Felix  had  the  strange  sense 
that  he  had  seen  her  thus  before.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  tiny  place,  but  there  was  a  large  table  capable 
of  seating  a  family,  and  bunks  built  around  the  walls, 
where,  Joyce  explained  to  him,  Uncle  Jim  had  once  upon  a 
time  stowed  his  family  when  they  came  out  here  for  week 
ends.  Joyce  had  spread  some  paper  napkins  at  one  corner 
of  the  big  table,  and  she  turned  with  flushed  cheeks  from  the 
hot  stove  with  a  steaming  bowl  of  soup.  Pork-and-beans 
came  next,  and  they  finished  with  coffee  and  cigarettes. 

"  Pretty  nice  place,  isn't  it  ?  "  said  Joyce,  coming  around 
and  seating  herself  on  his  knees. 
"  Yes,"  said  Felix.     "  I  wish  — " 

"  Wish  it  was  ours  ?  "  She  grinned  as  she  finished  it  for 
him.  "  Well,  it  is  —  for  the  time  being.  Nobody's  inter 
ested  in  the  old  motor-boat.  It's  ours  whenever  we  want  it. 
Do-you-love-me,  Felix  ? " 

He  kissed  her.  In  the  joyous  enchantment  of  those 
kisses,  time  passed  unregarded.  And  it  seemed  to  them  as 
though  they  could  stay  for  ever  in  that  happy  state  of  young 
passion,  in  which  the  touch  of  hands  and  lips  and  the  sound 
of  murmured  endearments  has  almost  too  much  of  magic  in 
it  —  when  these  things  yield  more  than  the  heart  can  desire. 
It  was  with  a  kind  of  reluctant  sadness  that  they  saw  that 
first  chaste  magic  depart,  and  trembling  hands  and  beating 
hearts  told  them  that  they  stood  upon  the  verge  of  a  more 
desperate  wish.  He  looked  at  her  and  saw  troubled  con 
fession  in  her  eyes. 

"  No,"  she  breathed,  but  she  yielded  herself  to  his  tor 
mented  clasp  yet  another  moment,  and  yearned  to  him  with 
candid  fervour ;  then  drew  herself  from  his  arms.  "  No," 
she  said.  "  Let's  talk." 


334  Moon-Calf 

They  talked  —  about  what  a  nice  little  house  it  was,  and 
how  lucky  they  were  to  be  able  to  get  away  from  everybody 
to  its  shelter;  and  presently  they  found  themselves  talking 
about  marriage.  They  talked  about  it  in  a  quite  impersonal 
way. 

Felix  had  not  been  very  clear  upon  the  subject.  He  was 
by  no  means  certain  in  his  own  mind  as  to  the  proper  boun 
dary  line  between  theory  and  practice.  He  had  no  definite 
intention  of  entering  upon  an  unconventional  course  of  con 
duct,  nor  any  intention  of  persuading  Joyce  to  such  a  course. 
He  wanted  her  to  believe  in  his  theories.  Perhaps  more 
than  anything,  he  wanted  the  triumph  of  converting  her 
to  such  theories,  theories  which  were  strange,  daring,  and 
his  own!  Perhaps  that  conversion  was  a  condition  of  his 
own  surrender.  Or  perhaps,  in  the  midst  of  a  sudden  and 
overwhelmingly  human  experience,  he  clung  to  the  memory 
of  his  shadow-land  of  ideas,  in  which  he  could  be  so  much 
more  enterprising,  so  much  bolder  and  surer  of  himself, 
than  in  this  unaccustomed  and  surprising  world  of  desperate 
reality  in  which  he  found  himself  a  shy  adventurer.  ...  In 
the  midst  of  his  argument  against  marriage,  she  slipped 
from  his  knee  and  went  back  to  her  seat  just  around  the 
corner  of  the  table. 

"  But  marriage,"  she  said,  "  is  what  people  make  it.  It 
all  depends  on  whom  you  marry." 

Felix  had  unconsciously  been  describing  her  marriage 
with  such  a  person  as  J.  H.,  and  pointing  out  its  defects. 
It  was  no  wonder  that  she  was  unable  to  recognize  the  pic 
ture  as  pertaining  to  themselves.  .  .  .  Now  he  was  arguing 
the  absurdity  of  promising  to  love.  "  How  can  any  one 
keep  such  a  promise?"  he  asked  scornfully. 

She  looked  at  him  with  hurt  eyes.  "Why  not?"  she 
asked. 

"  Suppose,"  he  said  ingeniously,  "  you  had  married  J.  H. 
—  and  then  met  me  ?  " 

She  smiled.  "  Then  I  would  have  been  a  very  different 
person.  And  I  wouldn't  be  here  with  you  now." 


Young  Hearts  335 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said.  "  You  might  be  here.  ...  I  can 
imagine  you,  flinging  out  of  J.  H.'s  house  after  a  quarrel 
with  him,  just  as  you  did  this  evening  out  of  your  uncle's. 
People  don't  change  all  at  once.  You  are  you,  and  you 
couldn't  adapt  yourself  suddenly  to  an  absurd  ideal.  You've 
never  succeeded  in  adapting  yourself  very  well  anywhere. 
Have  you  ?  " 

She  was  silent,  and  he  was  instantly  sorry  that  he  had 
said  it.  He  took  her  hand,  that  lay  on  the  table  before  him, 
and  caressed  it.  She  returned  the  pressure  of  his  fingers  — 
and  in  an  instant  both  of  them  began  to  tremble,  and  they 
looked  into  each  other's  eyes  almost  with  terror.  He  bent 
toward  her,  but  she  bit  her  lip  and  shook  her  head  from  side 
to  side.  The  dizziness  passed  ...  a  little. 

"  You  would  still  be  you,"  she  heard  his  voice  saying  un 
steadily.  "  And  you  might  have  come  here  with  me  just 
the  same." 

"  Don't  let's  think  of  things  like  that,"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice. 

"But  isn't  it  true?" 

"  No,"  she  said  stubbornly. 

"  Yes,"  he  insisted.  "  Our  feelings  could  not  change  be 
cause  of  — " 

"  Maybe,"  she  conceded  reluctantly,  "  but  — " 

"And  you  —  would  still  be  holding  hands  with  me  — 
just  the  same." 

She  drew  her  hands  away. 

"  What  makes  us  love  each  other  now,"  he  went  on  in 
exorably,  "  would  make  us  love  each  other  then." 

She  shook  her  head  slowly. 

"  We  would  want  to  kiss  each  other,"  he  said,  "  even 
though  your  kisses  were  legally  the  property  of  another 
man." 

"  You  make  it  so  horrid,  Felix !  You  make  me  feel 
guilty,  being  here  with  you.  What  a  nasty  idea  to  put  into 
a  person's  head.  Why,  I  feel  as  though  — " 

He  came  around  behind  her  chair,  and  put  his  arms  about 


336  Moon-Calf 

her,  and  drew  back  her  head.  She  resisted.  But  with  the 
imaginative  zest  of  youth,  she  was  unable  to  resist  the 
strange  pleasure  of  savouring  in  fantasy  an  unknown  ex 
perience:  she  was  pretending  to  be  the  wife  of  another. 
And  Felix  knew  it.  He  held  her  more  tightly  in  his  arms. 
She  rose,  and  struggled,  and  her  breathing  grew  heavy ;  but 
she  was  fighting  less  against  him  than  against  an  impulse  to 
surrender,  and  at  last  when  his  lips  touched  hers  she  gave 
up  and  drank  his  kiss  deeply,  passionately  —  and  then  be 
gan  suddenly  to  cry,  and  sheltered  her  head  on  his  breast. 

Bewildered  and  half  ashamed  of  his  triumph,  he  petted 
and  rallied  her.  She  stopped  crying,  laughed,  and  wiped 
her  eyes.  "  How  perfectly  silly !  "  she  said.  And  then  — 
"  let's  get  out  of  here.  I  don't  feel  comfortable  any  more. 
And  anyway,  it's  time  for  us  to  go." 


They  left  the  cabin,  both  a  little  sad  and  moody,  not  ex 
changing  their  thoughts.  Felix  was  thinking,  "  What  a 
fool  I  am  !  " 

"  We've  spoiled  a  perfectly  good  evening,"  she  said,  as 
they  went  down  to  the  boat. 

"  And  learned  something,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "  but  what?" 

They  did  not  argue  or  discuss,  they  only  talked  humanly 
and  romantically,  on  the  homeward  trip.  "  Anyway,"  she 
said  as  they  parted,  after  Felix  had  uttered  repentant  pro 
testations  which  might  have  seemed  to  make  her  question 
superfluous,  "  you  do  love  me,  don't  you  ? " 


XLIII  Ethics 


DURING  the  rest  of   the   week  they   spent  every 
evening  together  at  the  Cabin.     They  were  both  in 
love  with  their  quaint  domesticity,  and  its  details 
furnished  a  happy  expedient  to  mitigate  what  at  times  — 
but  only  at  times  —  seemed  to  them  both  the  unendurable 
rigours  of  unfulfilled  love.     Another  expedient  was  theo 
retical  discussion.     And  in  these  discussions  Felix  managed 
to  clarify  somewhat  his  views  on  the  subject  of  marriage  — 
which  was  still  treated  in  their  discussions  as  an  abstract 
question. 

" 1  don't  say,"  Felix  explained  on  one  occasion,  "  that  a 
free  society  can  be  created  all  at  once,  or  that  any  two  indi 
viduals  should  crucify  themselves  before  the  public  in  the 
name  of  principle.  Though  if  any  two  people  wanted  to  do 
that,  I  would  think  it  splendid  of  them." 

"  And  I,"  said  Joyce,  "  would  think  it  ridiculous."  She 
had  become  more  acclimated  to  arguments  by  this  time,  and 
expressed  herself  often  both  frankly  and  forcibly. 

"Do  you  think  The  Woman  Who  Did  was  ridiculous?" 
he  demanded,  referring  to  a  book  he  had  lent  her. 

'*  No  —  but  I  did  think  she  was  very  foolish.  And  her 
child  certainly  did  not  thank  her  for  being  brought  into  the 
world  a—"  ' 

"  Of  course,"  said  Felix,  before  she  could  finish  the  sen 
tence.  .  .  .  There  was  another  thing.  He  never  could  get 
her  to  use  the  scientific  and  poetic  terms  which  he  thought 
appropriate  to  such  discussions.  She  banged  him  merci 
lessly  with  the  common  word,  the  brutal  phrase.  When  he 
protested,  she  said  only,  "  Well,  that's  what  people  will  say !  " 

337 


338  Moon-Calf 

"  Of  course,"  said  Felix,  "  where  there  are  children  to  be 
considered,  there  is  some  excuse  for  conforming  to  the  con 
vention  of  marriage.  But  where  two  people  want  to  be 
free,  and  live  independent  lives,  and  do  their  own  work  — " 

"  And  never  have  a  home  together.  .  .  .  Yes,  that  sort 
might  not  mind." 

"  When  two  people  who  love  each  other  don't  live  to 
gether,  they  are  always  glad  to  meet,"  Felix  pointed  out. 
4<  They  spend  as  much  time  as  they  can  in  each  other's  com 
pany,  precisely  because  they  don't  have  to.  When  they  have 
to,  they  begin  to  want  to  be  apart." 

l<  They  may  not  want  to  be  together  all  the  time,"  said 
Joyce,  "  but  they  want  the  chance  to  be  together  some  of 
the  time." 

"  They  can  have  that,"  said  Felix.  "  They  can  have  a 
little  cabin  in  the  woods  somewhere  —  and  be  all  the  hap 
pier  because  nobody  knows  of  their  happiness." 

Joyce  shivered.  " /  wouldn't,"  she  said.  "I  —  what's 
the  use  of  our  pretending  that  we  are  just  talking  generali 
ties  ?  We  aren't  talking  about  people  at  large,  we're  talking 
about  ourselves  —  you  and  me.  To  begin  with,  we  haven't 
got  a  little  cabin  in  the  woods.  And  I  would  feel  like  a 
thief  if  I  used  Uncle  Jim's  place  for — " 

She  paused ;  he  knew  that  she  was  trying  to  think  of  some 
term  sufficiently  brutal,  even  vulgar,  to  describe  such  con 
duct.  He  hastened  to  fend  it  off  by  saying,  "  Perhaps 
Uncle  Jim  would  not  approve  of  your  conduct,  as  it  is  — 
if  he  only  knew." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  laughed.  "  Uncle  Jim's 
human,"  she  said.  "  And  courtship  is  courtship.  Uncle 
Jim  knows  I'm  wild,  but  he  thinks  I'm  what  he  would  call 
a  good  girl ;  and  while  I'm  living  under  his  roof,  I'm  going 
to  be." 

"  You  shall  be  whatever  you  like,"  said  Felix  coldly.  "  I 
ask  nothing  of  you  for  myself.  I  ask  only  that  you  be  true 
to  your  own  soul." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  said.     "  I'm  not  accusing  you  of   any- 


Ethics  339 

thing."  She  laughed,  and  put  her  head  on  his  knee,  and 
continued,  with  a  whimsical  tenderness  in  her  voice :  "  You 
are  the  most  ethical  pirate  that  ever  sunk  a  ship.  If  I  walk 
the  plank,  it  will  be  of  my  own  free  will.  I  haven't  even 
the  consolation  of  being  led  astray." 

He  took  her  hand.  "  I  don't  want  to  make  you  un 
happy,"  he  said.  *'  So  long  as  you  believe  in  those  old 
codes  of  morality,  you  are  quite  right  in  living  up  to  them." 

"  I  suppose  I'm  just  a  coward,"  she  said,  clinging  to  his 
hand. 

**  No,  you're  not  a  coward.  You  will  do  whatever  you 
think  is  right." 

"  Then,"  she  said,  laughing  and  jumping  up,  "  I  will  wash 
the  dishes  this  minute.  Whatever  else  is  right,  the  dishes 
should  be  done.  Come  on  Felix,  you've  got  to  help  me. 
There's  the  towel." 


Felix  was  more  in  love  with  her  than  ever.  This  golden 
creature  who  could  "  talk  the  talk  of  men,  and  deal  a  wound 
that  lingers,"  this  new  Joyce  who  had  emerged,  as  it  seemed, 
from  her  outward  disguise  during  their  long  evenings  to 
gether,  enchanted  him.  He  did  not  care  now  that  she  held 
to  a  few  shreds  of  conventional  morality;  she  was  suffi 
ciently  unconventional  in  her  defence  of  her  position.  And 
the  deeply  satisfying  thing  was  that,  whatever  their  differ 
ences  of  opinion,  they  were  able  to  utter  them  to  each  other 
with  perfect  freedom.  She  was  more  interesting,  he  some- 
:imes  thought,  than  if  she  agreed  with  him  about  every- 
:hing.  He  had  imagined  in  fancy  such  superb  one-ness  of 
:hought  with  her ;  but  the  real  she  was  more  charming  than 
lis  fancy,  because  full  of  surprises  for  him.  He  asked  no 
nore  of  her.  She  was  wonderful  enough. 

He  wanted  to  show  her  off  to  Tom.  He  had  been  elo- 
juent  to  Tom  about  her,  and  had  told  her  all  about  Tom. 
rle  was  anxious  for  them  to  appreciate  each  other  at  first 


340  Moon-Calf 

hand.  And  so,  on  Sunday  afternoon,  just  before  Tom  went 
to  Chicago,  Felix  took  Joyce  to  see  him. 

He  received  them  in  his  garret,  in  the  middle  of  which 
stood  a  large  travelling  bag,  half  packed,  and  then  seem 
ingly  deserted  for  the  long  letter  whose  closely  written 
sheets  covered  the  table  and  spilled  off  on  the  floor,  and 
from  which  Tom  arose  with  a  dazed  and  absent  air  when 
they  entered.  He  focused  his  thoughts  upon  them,  and 
offered  them  some  wine;  and  when  Joyce,  somewhat  to 
Felix's  surprise,  declined  it,  he  suggested  tea,  with  the  air 
of  one  who  remembers  the  right  thing  at  last. 

Felix  felt  that  the  occasion  had  distinctly  not  started  off 
right.  But  worse  was  to  come.  For  Tom,  as  he  made  the  tea 
in  a  masterly  fashion,  began  to  talk  with  a  growing  genial 
ity  which,  however,  had  a  horribly  social,  that  is  to  say,  con 
ventional,  manner  to  it.  And  Joyce  responded  in  the  same 
vein,  at  first  formally,  and  then  with  an  air  of  sparkling  in 
terest.  They  were  talking  about  people  they  both  knew,  or 
who  were  related  to  people  they  knew,  but  in  whom,  as  Felix 
was  irritatedly  aware,  neither  of  them  had  the  slightest  in 
terest.  .  .  . 

It  was  bad  enough  of  Tom  to  behave  that  way ;  but  he  had 
an  excuse.  The  visit  to  Chicago  was  on  his  mind,  and  he 
was  plainly  distrait.  But  Joyce's  conduct  seemed  inexcus 
able.  She  knew  what  kind  of  person  Tom  was  —  he  had 
told  her  often  enough.  And  here  she  was,  behaving  as 
though  she  were  making  an  ordinary  social  call.  In  a  bour 
geois  sort  of  way,  she  and  Tom  were  getting  on  famously. 
It  was  evident  that  Joyce  had  what  would  be  called  social 
charm.  But  that  was  not  what  Felix  had  brought  her  there 
to  show  off!  ... 

He  felt  very  ill  at  ease.  He  felt  like  a  stranger  to  them 
both,  an  outsider  who  had  happened  in  upon  a  Port  Royal 
host  and  guest  in  the  dutiful  ceremony  of  their  kind. 
Joyce  was  utterly  disguised  for  him.  He  watched  for  the 
faintest  gleam  of  the  real  girl  beneath  that  disguise,  but 
there  was  nothing.  In  an  effort  to  break  the  spell,  he  of- 


Ethics  341 

fered  her  a  cigarette ;  she  refused  it  casually,  with  the  faint 
est  air  of  humorous  surprise. 

He  wondered  what  impression  Tom  would  get  of  her: 
certainly  nothing  she  was  saying  bore  out  in  the  least  his 
eloquent  descriptions.  Tom  would  think  she  was  a  nice 
bourgeois  girl ;  that  was  all.  He  would  think  —  perhaps  — 
that  Felix's  eloquent  praise  of  her  was  merely  the  folly  of 
the  deluded  lover.  .  .  .  And  how  could  he  expect  Tom  to 
believe  otherwise,  if  this  was  the  way  she  behaved? 

He  had  intended  to  renew  his  old  friendship  with  Franz, 
and  take  Joyce  to  see  him.  He  had  intended  to  take  her 
with  him  to  the  Socialist  meetings,  which  he  had  not  at 
tended  for  a  long  while.  But  he  saw  the  folly  of  those 
plans  now.  In  that  environment,  she  would  be  intolerably 
bourgeois.  .  .  . 

He  had  desperately  to  reassure  himself  that  she  was  — 
sometimes  —  with  him  —  another  person  than  the  one  he 
saw  before  him  now.  With  him  she  was  real.  But  the 
discovery  that  she  was  not  real  anywhere  else  was  disheart 
ening.  It  took  away  some  of  the  authenticity  of  the  quali 
ties  which  he  loved  in  her.  To  her  Uncle  Jim,  to  Tom,  to 
all  the  world,  she  was  one  person  —  a  sufficiently  ordinary 
person.  Was  that  what  she  was,  in  truth,  after  all  ? 

He  wished  he  could  throw  some  verbal  bombshell  into 
the  polite  midst  of  the  little  chat  that  she  and  Tom  were 
having,  something  that  would  shatter  its  polite  pretences. 
But  he  was  frozen  stiff  by  their  efficient  and  artificial  soci 
ability,  and  could  only  sit  uncomfortably  on  his  chair,  fill 
ing  in  with  dogged  monosyllables  the  shining  opportunities 
which  they  both  left  for  him  from  time  to  time.  .  .  .  He 
was  glad  when  it  was  over,  and  they  could  go. 

3 

Outside  of  the  house,  in  the  dusk,  she  seemed  for  a  mo 
ment  to  become  alive  again.  Regardless  of  possible  onlook 
ers,  she  pulled  Felix's  head  over  to  hers,  kissed  his  ear,  and 
then  kicked  off  her  shoe  into  the  air.  It  hurtled  twenty 


342  Moon-Calf 

feet  away,  and  she  scampered  after  it  and  stood  on  one  foot, 
laughing  as  she  put  it  on.  It  struck  Felix  as  a  trifle  hys 
terical. 

"  Well,  that's  done/'  she  said,  taking  his  arm  again. 

"  What  did  you  think  of  Tom?  "  he  asked. 

She  made  a  face.  "  Oh,  he's  very  nice.  I've  no  doubt 
the  women  are  crazy  about  him." 

"Is  that  all?" 

"  His  place  looks  as  though  it  hadn't  been  swept  for  a 
year." 

"  I  told  you  about  that,"  said  Felix  resentfully. 

"  But  he  knew  we  were  coming.  .  .  .  And  he  wasn't 
shaved." 

"  Neither  am  I,  for  that  matter,"  said  Felix. 

"  Yes,  I  noticed  it,"  she  said  dryly. 

"  But  what  do  such  things  matter  ?  " 

"  I  like  you  better  when  you  are  shaved,"  she  said. 

"  I  meant  about  Tom.     It's  his  mind  — " 

"  Tom's  attraction  for  you  may  be  a  purely  intellectual 
one,"  said  Joyce,  "  but  take  it  from  a  girl,  it's  not  his  only 
asset."  She  laughed.  "  I  think  he  keeps  a  three-days' 
growth  of  beard  as  a  protection  against  being  kissed  by 
enthusiastic  females,  if  you  ask  me !  " 

"Then  you  did  like  him?" 

"  Of  course." 

"  I  would  never  have  guessed  it." 

"  There's  a  lot  of  things  you  would  never  guess,  Felix. 
You  are  too  intellectual  to  understand  women." 

"  Are  you  trying  to  make  me  jealous  ?  "  he  asked  lightly. 

She  laughed.  "  I  don't  know  that  I'd  mind  if  you  were 
—  a  little!" 

"Well,  it's  an  old  trick,"  said  Felix.  "But  it  doesn't 
work  with  me.  I'm  not  going  to  tie  you  up.  You  are  a 
free  woman.  You  can  do  as  you  like." 

"  You  can't  guess  whom  you  just  missed  when  you  came 
for  me  today,"  she  said  provocatively. 

"  No,  I  can't,"  he  replied  stolidly. 


Ethics  343 

"  J.  H." 

"Again?" 

"  Oh,  yes.  He  wouldn't  let  a  little  thing  like  being 
thrown  down-stairs  discourage  him.  He's  persistent, 
there's  that  to  be  said  for  him." 

44  Well,  do  you  like  him  any  better  than  you  did  ?  " 

"  He's  not  a  bad  sort." 

It  was  true  that  Felix  was  not  jealous,  though  perhaps 
not  for  precisely  the  reasons  he  supposed.  In  truth,  his 
egotism  could  not  tolerate  his  being  weighed  in  the  balance 
with  another.  He  would  not,  in  the  Emersonian  phrase 
which  even  now  flashed  into  his  mind,  have  wished  to  "  de 
tain  her  garment's  hem,"  if  she  wanted  to  go  to  the  arms  of 
another.  He  did  not  suspect  such  a  thing,  but  it  was  for 
her  to  say.  He  asked  coldly : 

"  Why  don't  you  marry  him?  " 

She  said  as  if  jokingly,  "  If  I  marry  anybody,  I'd  rather  it 
would  be  you !  " 

He  thrilled  at  her  words.  But  —  was  it  some  relic  of 
masculine  conventionalism  in  him  which  required  that  he  be 
the  one  to  make  such  a  proposal  ? 

"  Isn't  it  a  pity,"  he  said  lightly,  "  that  I  don't  believe  in 
marriage ! " 

"  And  there  we  are !  "  said  Joyce  cheerfully. 

4 

They  were  going  up  the  long  hill  toward  Vanderdecken 
Park.  Felix  began  again  to  explain  his  views  on  marriage. 
He  had  qualified  them  now  to  a  point  where  they  were,  if 
one  looked  closely,  scarcely  distinguishable  in  substance 
from  those  of  any  idealistic  person,  however  conventional. 
He  merely  did  not  want  a  dull  and  stodgy  marriage,  a  tame 
and  settled  marriage,  a  J.  H.  kind  of  marriage.  But  he  did 
not  make  this  distinction  particularly  clear ;  perhaps  because 
he  did  not  really  want  to.  And  he  continued  to  speak  of 
marriage  in  a  general  way,  as  though  he  were  viewing  it 
across  a  vast  distance.  His  manner  gave  the  effect  cf  as- 


344  Moon-Calf 

tronomical  remoteness  to  whatever  intentions  he  might  him 
self  have  cherished.  He  might  have  been  speaking  of  the 
precession  of  the  equinoxes.  .  .  . 

"I  wonder  if  I'm  just  a  coward?"  Joyce  said  softly. 

She  had  been  thinking  of  another  and  more  immediate 
aspect  of  their  problem. 

He  turned  to  her,  and  repeated  the  formula  which  he  had 
used  the  other  evening.  "  You  will  do  whatever  you  think 
is  right." 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  she  said.  "  Not  sure  enough 
to  spend  another  evening  at  the  cabin  with  you  —  just  now." 

"  Listen,"  he  said  tenderly.  "  You  know  I  love  you. 
But  until  it  is  not  only  your  body,  but  your  soul  that  is  con 
vinced  of  our  right  to  have  each  other,  I  will  help  you  to 
be  what  you  think  you  ought  to  be." 

She  pressed  his  fingers  tightly  and  drew  him  down  on  a 
little  bench  in  the  shadows  just  inside  the  park.  Still  hold 
ing  fast  to  his  hand,  she  said  in  a  shaken  voice  and  a  brave 
attempt  at  her  old  intransigent  manner :  "  That  sounds 
very  noble,  Felix,  and  I  ought  to  be  impressed.  But  in 
spite  of  it,  I'm  afraid  of  you.  Don't  make  fun  of  me, 
Felix;  but  I  think  you  are  doing  something  to  my  mind  — 
something  really  wrong,  worse  even  than  if  you  —  than  if 
you  just  seduced  my  body.  Perhaps  that  doesn't  make  any 
difference.  .  .  .  I've  not  told  you,  Felix,  one  —  one  thing 
in  my  past.  I'm  not " —  she  smiled  with  an  uncertain 
whimsicalness  — "  technically  pure.  But  it  hasn't  hurt  me. 
I've  forgotten  it.  I  would  never  have  spoken  of  it  to  any 
one  but  you.  It  was  just  —  dare-deviltry.  It  didn't  mean 
anything.  I'm  not  that  kind  of  person.  Truly,  I'm  not. 
I  want  to  be  good.  I  want  to  belong  to  one  person  always 
• —  all  of  me,  and  for  ever.  If  I  should  give  myself  to  you, 
Felix,  it  would  be  a  marriage  to  me.  I  would  want  to  be 
lieve  that  it  was  for  always." 

Felix  had  the  impulse  to  draw  her  to  him  and  kiss  her 
and  tell  her  that  it  didn't  matter.  .  .  .  But  his  mind  espied 
a  flaw  in  her  logic,  and  in  the  shaken  moment  that  followed 


Ethics  345 

her  revelation,  the  proud  unwillingness  to  attach  any  emo 
tional  importance  to  her  confession,  gave  his  mind  the  mas 
tery  over  his  feelings.  He  caught  up  her  last  words.  "  For 
always,"  he  repeated  calmly.  "  Are  you  sure  that  you 
didn't  think  the  same  thing  that  other  time  ?  " 

"Oh,  I  did!  "she  cried. 

"Well,  you  see—" 

She  saw,  and  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 

'*  You  see  that  it  is  no  use  to  make  promises  to  oneself 
and  others  that  can't  be  kept,"  he  said  with  quiet  finality. 
He  took  her  hand  again.  "  Today  you  think  this  of  me. 
Tomorrow  — " 

She  tugged  to  get  her  hand  away,  but  he  held  it  fast. 
"  Give  me  back  my  hand,"  she  said.  '*  How  can  you  sit 
there  and  say  such  horrible  things,  and  hold  my  hand  as  if 
you  loved  me?  You  don't  love  me.  Or  you  couldn't  be 
lieve  such  things.  Just  because — .  I'm  sorry  I  told  you," 
she  concluded  mournfully. 

"  Don't  be  sorry,"  he  said  gently.  "  You  have  told  me 
nothing  except  that  you  are  a  human  being.  I  didn't  think 
you  were  an  angel-doll." 

"  But  you  think,"  she  said  sadly,  "  that  I  wouldn't  be 
faithful  to  you." 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  be  '  faithful '  to  me,"  he  said,  with 
a  contemptuous  emphasis  on  the  word.  "  I  want  you  to  be 
faithful  to  your  own  soul." 

"  That,"  she  said,  drawing  her  hand  quietly  away  from 
him,  and  speaking  in  a  sombre  tone,  "  is  a  strange  thing  for 
a  man  to  say  to  a  girl.  .  .  .  You  don't  want  me  to  be  faith 
ful  to  you.  .  .  ."  Then  she  rose  and  said  in  an  ordinary 
cheerful  tone,  "  Come  on,  let's  go  home." 

He  rose.  "  You  are  deliberately  misunderstanding  me," 
he  said  angrily. 

She  took  his  arm.  "  I  understand  you  well  enough,"  she 
said.  "  And  I  like  you,  Felix.  But  we  were  mistaken, 
that's  all.  I  thought  we  were  kind  of  alike.  But  we're 
not.  I  have  a  devil  in  me,  it's  true.  But  it's  a  careless, 


346  Moon-Calf 

warm-hearted  devil;  and  the  devil  that  is  in  you  is  cold  — 
cold  and  cruel.  And  I'm  not  going  to  let  you  torture  me 
any  more.  Come  along !  " 

"  As  you  say !  "  They  walked  a  long  time  in  silence. 
"  Am  I  to  understand  that  you  don't  want  to  see  me  any 
more  ?  "  he  asked  at  last. 

"  Why,  what  gave  you  that  idea  ?  "  she  replied,  startled. 

"I  thought—" 

*'  You're  a  foolish  boy.  I  don't  mean  everything  I  say. 
And  I  don't  think  you  do,  either.  Let's  not  be  foolish  chil 
dren.  Kiss  me,  Felix." 

"  And  when,"  he  said  at  her  doorstep,  "  am  I  to  see  you 
again  ?  " 

"  Tomorrow,"  she  said.  "  No  —  not  tomorrow."  She 
looked  him  in  the  eyes.  '*  J.  H.  is  coming  tomorrow  eve 
ning.  But  the  evening  after.  Come  for  me  right  after 
dinner,  and  we'll  go  to  the  Cabin  again." 


Going  home,  he  wondered  why  he  had  said  those  things 
to  her.  He  shook  his  head,  ashamed  of  his  cruelty.  .  .  . 
But  at  the  same  time  he  felt  a  glow  of  triumph.  A  girl 
who  had  just  confessed  to  being  as  —  as  humanly  incon 
stant  as  she  had  been,  was  scarcely  in  a  position  to  lecture 
him  on  eternal  fidelity;  and  he  had  just  not  been  able  to 
resist  pointing  it  out.  Still,  he  need  not  have  been  so 
brutal.  .  .  . 

It  was  as  if  there  was  a  subterranean  struggle  between 
their  natures ;  a  struggle  in  which  he  wished  to  be  eventually 
defeated  by  her;  eventually,  yes  —  but  in  the  meantime,  he 
was  the  master ! 


XLIV  Truce 


ONE  evening  two  weeks  later,  Joyce  and  Felix  were 
reading  a  new,  much  talked  of,  American  novel. 
They  had  started  to  read  it  one  rainy  evening 
when  they  had  to  stay  at  home  in  Uncle  Jim's  parlour;  and 
they  had  been  so  interested  in  it  that  they  had  brought  it 
with  them  to  the  Cabin,  where  they  were  now  lying  prone 
on  the  floor,  side  by  side,  in  the  lamp-light,  turning  its  last 
pages.  Felix  read  faster,  a  little,  than  Joyce,  and  his 
thumb  and  finger  held  the  edge  of  the  penultimate  leaf, 
ready  to  turn.  He  was  looking  at  Joyce's  face,  at  the  little 
puckered  frown  with  which  she  read.  She  finished  the 
page,  her  intent  eyes  lifted  for  a  moment  and  she  smiled  at 
him.  He  quickly  turned  the  page,  and  they  read  the  final 
words  of  the  story  together. 

He  closed  the  book  and  sat  up,  and  she  laid  her  head  in 
his  lap.  He  lit  a  cigarette.  "  Light  me  one,  too,  Felix," 
she  said. 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  that's  such  a  wonderful  book,"  said 
Felix. 

She  thoughtfully  blew  a  cloud  of  smoke  up  toward  the 
ceiling.  "  I  don't  think  the  love  part  was  true"  she  said. 
"  Why  is  it  that  love  in  books  is  never  anything  like  what  it 
is  in  real  life?  " 

Felix  mused.  "  It  isn't  merely  that  they  don't  call  a 
spade  a  spade,"  he  said.  "  They  say,  '  the  cool,  sweet  rain- 
drenched  loam  felt  a  steely  shiver  of  anticipation.'  " 

"  They  just  don't  tell  the  truth,"  insisted  Joyce.  "  They 
leave  out  things  —  important  things." 

"  They  have  to,"  said  Felix.     "  Reality  is  improper." 

347 


348  Moon-Calf 

'*  But  it's  so  much  more  interesting,"  said  Joyce. 
"  Yes,"  said  Felix.  "  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  began  to 
read  books  to  try  to  find  out  something  about  life,  I  remem 
ber  that  I  was  always  impatient  of  the  way  they  wrote 
about  love.  For  grown-up  people,  people  who  knew  all 
about  it,  what  they  said  might  mean  something ;  but  it  didn't 
tell  me  anything.  And  the  supposedly  naughty  books  were 
worse  than  the  others ;  they  gave  a  false  view  of  every 
thing.  For  instance,  the  lovers  in  such  books  never  thought 
about  such  a  thing  as  babies.  They  simply  didn't  happen." 

*'  Mm,"  said  Joyce.  '*  Except  when  the  man  went  off  to 
Australia  or  somewhere,  and  then  the  girl  found  that  she 
was  going  to  have  one." 

"  That  possibility  hadn't  occurred  to  the  man ! "  said 
Felix.  "  And  you  were  left  in  the  dark  as  to  whether  they 
were  unfortunate,  or  reckless,  or  just  plain  ignorant." 

"  But  you  can't  write  about  things  like  that,"  said  Joyce. 

"  No,  but  you  could  give  an  idea,  it  seems  to  me,  that 
your  lovers  are  living  in  a  real  world,  and  that  love  isn't 
just  a  delirium  of  raptures  and  roses.  You  can  make  your 
lovers  real  people,  with  a  sense  of  responsibility  toward  each 
other,  instead  of  a  couple  of  poetic  savages.  ...  Of  course, 
within  the  limitations  of  reality,  love  is  a  poetic  and  savage 
thing.  .  .  .  Mmm  ?  " 

"  Mmmm !  " 

They  looked  deep  into  each  other's  eyes. 

"  Sweetheart !  " 

"Darling!" 

"  At  least,"  said  Joyce,  "  the  old  books  leave  you  some 
thing  to  find  out  for  yourself.  .  .  ." 

"  The  most  beautiful  of  secrets,"  said  Felix. 

"  And  an  end  to  arguing !  "  said  Joyce.  "  No  more  old 
intellectual  debates!  No  more  Advanced  Sociology!  Just 
Us!" 


Truce  349 


Nevertheless,  though  the  change  in  their  relationship  had 
simplified  the  problem  of  their  spiritual  adjustment,  it  had 
also  intensified  it  in  a  peculiar  way,  of  which  neither  of 
them  was  as  yet  consciously  aware.  In  a  sense  they  seemed 
to  have  exchanged  spiritual  attitudes  with  each  other.  It 
was  true,  there  was  no  more  debate  about  "  freedom." 
She  had  accepted  his  theories  with  a  suddenness  and  com 
pleteness  that  startled  him.  Gone,  apparently,  were  her 
fears,  forgotten  her  old-fashioned  conventional  ideas  of 
"honesty."  She  did  not  talk  of  freedom  —  she  lived  it, 
fearlessly  and  laughingly.  And  now  it  was  Felix  who  had 
secret  qualms  of  conscience.  .  .  . 

If  she  did  not  bother  any  more  about  what  Uncle  Jim 
thought,  Felix  did;  and  when  he  interviewed  that  jocund 
personage  in  his  office,  or  as  sometimes  happened,  smoked  a 
cigar  in  the  library  with  him  while  he  was  waiting  for 
Joyce,  the  generous  confidence  which  was  implicit  in  the 
older  man's  attitude  toward  his  niece's  suitor  rather  shook 
his  Nietzschean  morale.  Felix  was  really  ashamed  of  him 
self.  He  was  behaving  like  a  thief  and  a  liar;  he  was,  in 
very  truth,  a  thief  and  a  liar.  In  vain  he  reassured  himself 
that  Joyce  did  not  "  belong  "  to  anybody  but  herself,  and 
that  she  had  given  herself  freely;  but  however  true  that 
might  be  in  the  realm  of  pure  theory,  it  wasn't  somehow 
true  of  Joyce.  She  did  "  belong  " —  as  a  child  to  her  uncle ; 
and  as  a  woman  she  had  become  his  by  a  very  shady  trans 
action —  or  so  Felix  in  deadly  secret  felt  it  to  be.  He  did 
not  confide  these  doubts  to  Joyce;  her  attitude  was  too  ap 
parently  whole-hearted  an  acceptance  of  the  situation  to 
warrant  his  doing  so.  Indeed,  he  scarcely  confessed  these 
things  to  himself.  But  his  impulse  now  was  all  for  mak 
ing  his  title  clear.  The  only  thing  in  the  way  was  his  eco 
nomic  situation,  and  even  more  than  that,  his  economic 
timidity.  He  hated  to  think  in  such  terms,  but  it  was  true 
that  the  question  of  money  did  enter  into  their  love.  .  .  . 


350  Moon-Calf 

Not  that  Joyce  seemed  to  care  about  money ;  but  the  very 
vivacity  and  zest  with  which  she  exploited  the  possibilities 
of  the  little  Cabin  suggested  to  Felix  the  delight  she  would 
take  in  managing  a  real  house,  not  in  any  sense  as  its  drudge, 
but  magnificently  as  its  mistress.  One  could  doubtless  exist 
upon  such  small  means  as  he  might  provide:  but  one  could 
not  live  and  enjoy  life,  as  she  did,  except  upon  an  increasing 
scale  of  expensiveness  which  it  would  have  made  Felix 
proud  to  plan  for  except  that  it  frightened  him  to  think  of. 
And  how  she  did  enjoy  life!  She  enjoyed  their  domesticity 
with  a  pleasure  that  was  luxurious  and  intense.  To  cook  a 
meal  was  a  sybaritic  adventure.  In  the  Cabin  she  antici 
pated  in  miniature  the  life  she  would  live  in  a  house  of  her 
own. 

It  was  no  mere  rendezvous  for  illicit  love-making.  It  was 
her  home.  .  .  . 

She  was  amazing,  in  the  ease  and  simplicity  with  which 
she  put  on  secret  wif ehood  —  amazing  and  beautiful,  and  to 
one  who  in  spirit  still  lingered  perturbedly  upon  the  thres 
hold  of  intimacy,  rather  terrifying.  To  Felix  this  relation 
ship  was  a  wonderful  and  surprising  experience,  and  its 
newness  lasted.  Every  unaccustomed  gesture  of  her  bare 
arms  as  she  coiled  her  yellow  hair  about  her  head  or  twisted 
and  knotted  her  stockings  beneath  subtly-modelled  knees, 
was  a  revelation ;  every  phase  of  their  intimacy  a  bewilder 
ing  felicity.  But  to  her  it  seemed  to  be  less  a  miracle  than 
simply  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  She  had  no 
sense  of  personal  proprietorship  over  her  own  body  —  it 
was  as  if  it  belonged  to  him  rather  than  to  herself,  as  though 
it  had  meaning  for  her  only  in  such  possession  by  him.  She 
was  utterly  unashamed.  .  .  . 

To  Felix,  sex  was  a  mysterious  and  rather  sacred  theme, 
to  be  discussed  impersonally  in  scientific  terms,  or  solemnly 
and  beautifully  in  poetic  paraphrase.  He  regarded  jokes 
upon  that  theme  as  vulgar.  He  had  to  learn  from  her  lips 
that  it  was  possible  to  be  frivolous  or  merry  upon  that  sub 
ject  as  upon  any  other;  but  it  was  a  hard  lesson.  His  in- 


Truce  351 

tellectual  convictions  about  women  had  not  quite  prepared 
him  for  her  apocalyptic  self. 

He  was  not  candid  with  her  about  his  feelings;  for 
once,  when  he  had  merely  hinted  at  them  to  her,  she  had 
laughed  delightedly  and  said,  "  You  are  the  Puritan  in  this 
family,  Felix !  "  He  ingeniously  and  elaborately  proved  to 
her  that  she  was  mistaken,  and  made  no  further  confes 
sions.  But  it  was  true.  His  conscience  irked  him.  Their 
secrecy  seemed  ignoble.  And  their  "  freedom  "  which  only 
meant  an  absurd  separation  of  each  other  from  day  to  day, 
had  not  in  fact  the  glamour  it  shone  with  in  theory.  He 
knew  that  their  secret  bondage  united  them  as  truly  as  a 
conventional  marriage;  and  it  was  the  secrecy,  and  not  the 
bondage,  which  he  resented. 

And  freedom,  as  it  worked  out,  had  another  objectionable 
feature.  It  meant  that  she  still  permitted  the  attentions  of 
J.  H.  He  had  encouraged  her  to  do  so,  in  strict  accord 
with  his  theoretic  position ;  but  he  did  not  like  it.  The  rea 
son  he  assigned,  in  his  private  thoughts,  for  this  apparent 
inconsistency,  was  the  fact  that  she  did  not  seem  to  really 
want  to  play  around  with  J.  H.  If  she  really  wanted  to,  all 
right ;  she  was  free  to  do  so :  he  scorned  the  antique  notion 
of  possessiveness.  But  she  didn't  really  want  to  —  so  she 
said.  Well,  then,  why  did  she? 

The  situation  would  undoubtedly  have  been  much  simpler 
if  Joyce  had  only  realized  that  she  was  free  to  —  stop  play 
ing  with  J.  H.  But  she  seemed  to  want  to  be  told  to  stop. 
It  was  some  time  before  Felix  realized  this.  The  idea 
knocked  and  knocked  at  his  consciousness  before  he  let  it 
in.  Was  it  possible  that  she  was  flaunting  J.  H.  and  his 
flowers  and  motor-rides  in  order  to  force  him  to  tell  her 
that  it  wouldn't  do  ? 

Dimly  he  realized  the  meaning  of  that  strange  gesture  of 
defiance.  She  wanted  him  to  admit  that  she  was  his,  to 
have  and  to  hold,  to  keep  and  guard,  to  make  decisions  for, 
to  command  with  Yea  and  Nay.  .  .  .  There  was  a  terrific 
and  frightening  sweetness  in  the  thought. 


XLV  Opportunities 


FELIX  had,  from  the  first  meeting  with  Joyce,  neg 
lected  his  work.  Or  rather,  the  naive  curiosity  with 
which  he  had  been  seeing  the  daily  scene  of  life  for 
two  years,  and  which  was  so  easily  transmuted  through  the 
medium  of  words  into  a  constant  succession  of  "  stories  " 
for  his  paper,  seemed  to  be  vanishing.  He  was  hardly 
aware  of  its  passing;  his  energies  were  flowing  so  tre 
mendously  into  the  single  channel  of  a  personal  relation 
ship,  that  nothing  else  seemed  to  matter.  For  so  long  he 
had  been  unaware  of  any  effort  in  the  production  of  the 
work  for  which  he  received  his  pay,  that  it  had  come  to 
seem  a  mere  reaction  to  living;  and  now  that  the  necessity 
for  conscious  effort  had  come,  he  was  almost  incapable  of 
it.  He  did  not  feel  the  change  as  something  in  himself; 
he  only  thought  that  there  were  fewer  stories  to  be  written 
than  usual.  He  turned  out  his  regular  criticisms  of  the 
summer  stock-company  performances ;  but  even  in  these 
there  was  a  lack  of  the  humour  with  which  he  was  accus 
tomed  to  disguise  their  philosophical  import  —  they  had  be 
come  stormy,  troubled  questionings.  .  .  .  He  was  express 
ing  himself,  as  usual;  but  what  he  had  to  express  had  suf 
fered  a  change  which  made  it,  as  pabulum  offered  by  a  daily 
newspaper  to  its  readers,  unpalatable. 

Such  a  thing  as  a  falling-off  in  the  quality  of  a  reporter's 
work  was  nothing  new  to  his  office;  reporters  fell  in  love, 
or  played  poker  every  night  for  weeks  and  went  about 
sleepy-eyed  and  dazed  all  day,  or  got  drunk  too  often,  or 
had  domestic  difficulties  that  were  reflected  in  an  increasing 
grouchiness;  and  these  things  passed.  But  Rosenthal,  the 

352 


Opportunities  353 

owner  of  the  paper,  had  never  got  over  his  first  grudge 
against  Felix;  he  still  darkly  suspected  Felix  of  an  animus 
against  the  Jews  —  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been  mistaken 
that  first  time  had  only  served  to  bury,  and  not  to  kill,  his 
prejudice.  Nevertheless,  when  Rosenthal  pointed  with 
scornful  finger  to  Felix's  latest  alleged  dramatic  criticism, 
and  said  to  J.  G.  in  their  weekly  conference,  "  What  kind 
of  stuff  do  you  call  that !  " —  J.  G.  defended  him  and  coun 
seled  patience.  "  He's  all  right,"  said  J.  G.  "He'll  get 
over  this  fit,  whatever  it  is."  And  presently,  in  truth,  the 
quantity  of  Felix's  work  had  suddenly  increased,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  seemed  to  have  recovered  his  old  sprightliness 
of  style.  J.  G.,  with  blue  pencil  poised  over  the  sheet  con 
taining  Felix's  review  of  the  newest  play,  sighed  with  relief, 
and  permitted  himself  to  smile  at  a  funny  line,  and  the  blue 
pencil  was  restored  to  its  place  behind  his  ear.  "  He's  get 
ting  over  it,"  said  J.  G. 

2 

But  rumours  percolate  easily  from  one  newspaper  office 
to  another,  and  when  Felix  was  walking  through  the  street 
one  afternoon,  the  city  editor  of  the  Record  hailed  him  from 
his  bicycle,  descended,  stood  his  wheel  against  the  curb,  and 
invited  Felix  in  to  the  nearest  ice-cream  parlour.  "  I  hear," 
said  Madison  of  the  Record,  "  that  you  are  thinking  of  leav 
ing  the  News.  It's  none  of  my  business  what  your  mo 
tives  are,  but  if  you'd  like  to  come  to  the  Record,  I  think 
we  can  find  a  berth  for  you,  and  perhaps  a  little  more  than 
you  are  getting  there. —  You  understand,  I'm  not  trying  to 
get  you  away  from  your  present  job.  I'll  be  perfectly 
frank  with  you.  Your  chances  on  the  Record  are  just  the 
same  as  they  are  on  the  Nezvs;  you  might  find  yourself  out 
of  a  job  the  next  week.  It's  merely  that  if  you  are  going 
to  leave,  you  might  try  us.  There's  a  vacancy  at  present. 
But  if  you  come,  you'd  better  do  it  pretty  quick,  because 
there  are  some  other  bright  young  men  who  want  the  place." 

Felix  thanked  him  gratefully,  and  said  he  would  think  it 


354  Moon-Calf 

over.  .  .  .  He  had  been  unaware  that  his  job  on  the  News 
was  in  any  real  danger,  though  what  J.  G.  had  done  to  his 
stuff  with  his  blue  pencil  had  finally  made  him  realize  that 
all  was  not  well.  At  the  moment,  this  offer  from  the 
Record,  flattering  as  it  was,  only  increased  his  sense  of  eco 
nomic  security.  If  he  was  worth  an  offer  from  the  Record, 
his  stuff  could  not  have  been  so  bad  after  all!  And  he 
rather  hated  to  make  a  change ;  there  would  be  different 
conditions  to  deal  with;  old  Watkins,  the  owner  of  the 
Record,  had  a  bad  reputation  for  firing  reporters  —  if  he 
didn't  like  an  article,  out  went  the  man  who  wrote  it,  with 
out  argument.  What  was  the  use  of  giving  up  a  good  job 
for  something  uncertain  ? 

Of  course,  there  was  the  better  pay.  It  was  worth  think 
ing  about. 

The  next  day  he  ran  across  Deems  Morgan,  and  dis 
cussed  the  matter  with  him.  Deems  told  him,  as  one  who 
knows,  that  he,  Felix,  had  been  within  an  ace  of  being  fired 
last  week.  "  Better  take  the  job,"  he  advised.  .  .  .  But 
that  information  gave  the  situation  a  new  aspect.  If  it  was 
true  that  he  had  been  almost  fired,  then  it  was  true  that  his 
work  was  not  up  to  the  mark,  editorially.  And  if  so,  then 
this  was  scarcely  the  time  to  meet  the  challenge  of  new 
conditions.  .  .  . 

Felix  was  a  little  surprised  at  his  own  timidity.  Last 
winter,  he  knew,  he  would  have  accepted  the  opportunity 
with  enthusiasm.  Why  should  he  be  so  diffident  about  it 
now,  especially  —  especially  since  it  fitted  in  so  well  with  his 
desire  to  get  married!  For  with  a  little  bigger  salary,  he 
could  consider  realistically  the  idea  of  supporting  a  wife. 
He  had  been  secretly  afraid  that  with  her  bringing  up,  he 
would  never  be  able  to  support  Joyce  properly ;  and  perhaps, 
in  some  dim  way  which  he  was  far  from  understanding, 
there  was  a  strange  relief  for  him  in  his  inability  to  do  so. 
But  with  more  money  and  a  new  job,  he  would  have  to 
come  down  from  his  theoretical  high-horse  and  commence 
to  think  about  the  rent  of  an  apartment  and  a  domestic 


Opportunities  355 

budget  for  two.  .  .  .  There  was  a  thrill  in  facing  that  pros 
pect;  but  the  truth  was,  he  was  a  little  afraid  of  it. 

3 

It  was  a  question  which  he  would  have  to  consider  care 
fully.  He  called  up  Joyce  on  the  telephone.  He  had  no 
engagement  with  her  that  evening ;  and,  though  he  had  care 
fully  refrained  from  asking,  doubtless  she  was  permitting 
the  attentions  of  the  objectionable  J.  H.  But  he  wanted  to 
see  her,  to  talk  with  her  about  the  Record  offer. 

As  he  stood  there  in  the  telephone  booth  waiting  for  his 
number,  he  realized  suddenly  that  once  he  talked  to  Joyce, 
it  was  all  over  but  the  actual  ceremony  of  marriage;  and 
that  they  would  commence  to  plan  tonight!     He  realized 
it  with  a  vast  relief.     Of  course!     What  was  the  use  of 
pretending?     They  were  already  married,  and  their  talk  to 
night  would  be  merely  to  arrange  for  a  public  and  cere 
monial  acknowledgment  of  the  fact.  .  .  . 
"  Hello !  "     She  was  on  the  wire. 
"  Can  I  come  up  this  evening  ?  " 
"  Why  —  you  know  I've  another  engagement,  Felix." 
"  Oh,  well  —  I  guess  this  can  wait,  then." 
"  Is  it  something  important  ?     I  can  put  off  this  other  — " 
"  Not  so  very  important,  I  guess.     It  can  be  put  off  just 
as  well." 

"  If  you  say  so,  Felix,  I'll  — I'll  telephone  J.  H.  he  can't 
come.     I  would  just  as  soon.     If  you  want  me  to." 

There  it  was  again:     //  you  want  me  to!    Why  must 
everything  be  done  in  the  light  of  a  favour  to  him? 
"  Do  just  as  you  want  to." 
"  But  I  want  to  do  what  you  want  me  to." 
That    same    strange,    unending    struggle,    in    which    she 
sought  only  the  privilege  of  obeying  —  a  struggle  in  which 
she  would  be  the  victor  if  he  consented  to  accept  the  direc 
tion  of  her  destinies.     Almost  she  won,  in  this  moment. 
Ahead  everything  lay  so  smooth  and  simple.     That  talk  — 
and  an  end  of  separation  —  a  life  together ! 


356 


Moon-Calf 


But  no,  he  would  not  surrender. 

"  I  want  you  to  do  what  you  want  to  do."  He  was  very 
stern  about  it.  Damn  it  all,  if  she  really  loved  him  as  much 
as  she  said,  couldn't  she  break  a  date  with  another  man  on 
her  own  initiative  ? 

"  You  see,  he  was  going  to  take  me  out  in  the  car.  But 
if  you  say  so — " 

"  I  think,"  said  Felix,  *'  that  you  really  want  to  go  with 
him.  Good-bye." 

And  when  they  met  the  following  evening,  he  was  suffi 
ciently  estranged  not  to  want  to  tell  her.  He  felt  that  it 
would  serve  her  right  if  he  let  the  opportunity  slip.  .  .  . 
Nevertheless  he  had  a  plan.  He  would  ask  for  a  raise,  and 
if  he  didn't  get  it,  he  would  take  the  job  on  the  Record. 

He  did  ask  for  the  raise.  And  when  he  confided  as  much 
to  her,  there  was  a  beautiful  look  in  her  eyes,  instantly 
shut  off  as  she  looked  away  and  began  to  talk  about  some 
thing  else. 

4 

Felix  did  not  hear  about  his  raise  immediately,  and  he 
began  to  be  worried  for  fear  he  was  letting  the  Record  op 
portunity  pass  by:  Madison  had  said,  "  If  you  come,  you'd 
better  do  it  pretty  quick."  Well,  he  would  wait  one  more 
day.  .  .  . 

He  waited  two.  And  in  the  evening,  after  covering  a 
stupid  assignment,  came  back  cursing  himself  for  the  folly 
of  such  delay.  He  was  going  to  the  office  and  write  the 
story,  and  then  call  Joyce  up  and  tell  her  everything.  .  .  . 
The  building  was  deserted,  but  he  had  the  key.  It  was  late 
when  he  called  up  her  house,  but  her  voice  answered.  And 
it  was  she,  not  he,  who  presently  spoke  about  the  question 
so  much  on  his  mind.  "  Have  you  — "  and  then  there  was  a 
click,  and  a  blurring  of  her  voice,  and  she  had  to  speak 
louder:  "  Have  you  heard  anything  about  your  raise  yet?" 
And  he  said,  "  No,  not  yet  —  those  dollars  are  a  very  im- 


Opportunities  357 

portant  matter  to  the  old  Jew,  and  he'll  have  to  think  for 
ever  about  it.  But  I  want — " 

"  I  can't  hear  very  well,"  she  said.  "  Somebody's  listen 
ing  in,  I  think.  Get  off  the  wire,  please!" 

There  was  another  click,  and  then  her  voice  came 
clearly.  .  .  . 

Felix  had  a  grim  presentiment,  and  as  he  hurried  down 
the  stairs  a  few  minutes  later  he  passed  old  Rosenthal  com 
ing  out  of  the  business  office  —  Rosenthal  with  a  malignant 
look  in  his  eye  and  no  answer  to  Felix's  polite  greeting.  .  .  . 

Felix  went  over  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  to  the 
Record:  Madison  was  very  sorry,  they  had  just  filled  that 
place  yesterday.  '*  If  I  had  only  known  you  wanted  it!  — 
I'll  tell  you;  you  might  keep  in  touch  with  us,  anyway." 
Sotto  voce :  "  A  little  later,  maybe  .  .  . !  " 

Felix  went  back  to  his  office,  and  received  the  news  that 
he  had  been  discharged,  to  take  effect  immediately  —  by 
special  orders  from  Mr.  Rosenthal. 

"  Fired,"  said  Felix  to  himself,  "  for  insulting  a  Jew !  " 

He  went  out,  smiling  at  the  tawdry  irony  of  circumstance. 


XLVI  Economics 


FELIX  told  Joyce  about  his  bad  luck;  but  he  did  not 
tell  her  just  how  bad  it  was.     She  showed  a  dispo 
sition   to    be   motherly   and   comforting,    which   he 
sternly  checked.     He  told  her  that  it  really  did  not  matter. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do?  "  she  asked. 

41  I  really  think  there's  a  good  chance  of  my  getting  on 
the  Record''  he  said,  "  and  I'm  going  to  wait  for  it." 

"  How  long  do  you  think  that  will  be  ?  " 

*'  Oh,  a  month  or  so." 

"  You're  sure  you  won't  —  get  discouraged  and  want  to 
go  to  Chicago  ?  " 

"Why  Chicago?" 

"  Oh,  to  get  another  newspaper  job.  Of  course,  if  you're 
sure  of  this  one  — " 

"  I'm  pretty  sure  of  it.  Madison  really  wants  me.  And 
I  sha'n't  get  discouraged,  because  I  shall  be  doing  something 
else  in  the  meantime.  I  shall  have  to  —  I  can't  afford  to 
loaf." 

"Something  else?    What?" 

"  I  don't  know.  It's  doesn't  make  any  difference.  Any 
thing  to  keep  me  busy.  I'll  look  around." 

She  applauded  his  resolution,  and  he  went  forth  to  look 
for  a  job.  He  went  first  to  an  advertising  firm,  with  the 
idea  that  his  newspaper  experience  might  be  of  value  there. 
And  there  was  said  to  be  good  money  in  advertising;  per 
haps  on  the  whole  it  would  be  better  than  newspaper  work. 
But  there  appeared  to  be  no  opening.  He  did  not  know 
what  to  try  next.  Tentatively  he  went  to  a  store,  a  big  de 
partment  store,  and  asked  to  see  the  advertising  manager. 

358 


Economics  359 

That  personage  seemed  unexpectedly  willing  to  consider 
Felix  as  an  applicant  for  the  position  of  assistant  advertis 
ing  writer.  "  We've  been  thinking,"  he  said,  "  of  trying 
something  new  and  original  —  different  —  in  the  way  of 
advertising."  He  did  not  say  that  the  business  was  on  the 
road  to  bankruptcy  and  that  its  worried  department  heads 
were  willing  to  consider,  at  least  for  a  moment,  almost  any 
thing.  '*  Can  you  draw  pictures  ?  —  I  don't  mean  regular 
pictures,  but  something  odd?  Or  write  jingles  —  stuff  with 
rhymes,  you  know  ?  " 

Felix  admitted  an  ability  in  the  latter  direction. 

"  Suppose  you  do  us  a  pome  about  our  Persian  rugs,"  he 
said.  "  Just  to  look  at." 

Felix  wandered  about  the  store,  and  then  went  to  the 
nearest  little  park  and  wrote  the  "  rug  pome,"  together  with 
half  a  dozen  other  airy  jingles  upon  various  other  articles 
of  merchandise,  somewhat  in  the  Mother  Goose  style.  He 
remembered  reading  a  story  by  Richard  Le  Gallienne  in 
which  a  poet  rose  from  starvation  to  affluence  by  writing 
just  such  trifles.  .  .  .  He  brought  the  verses  to  the  store,  and 
was  asked  to  leave  them  and  call  next  day.  He  did  so. 
The  advertising  manager  had  decided  not  to  employ  him; 
but  he  might  use  the  verses,  he  said,  and  in  any  case  wanted 
to  pay  him  for  his  trouble  —  and  so  saying  he  gave  Felix 
seventy-five  cents. 

That,  at  least,  was  funny,  and  Joyce  laughed  over  it  when 
he  told  her.  She  now  affected  the  same  lightness  that  he 
had  insisted  upon  in  his  first  announcement  of  his  immedi 
ate  plans;  it  did  not  seem  to  matter.  She  appeared  to  be 
certain  that  he  would  turn  up  something  good  in  a  day  or 
two.  But  Felix  was  secretly  not  so  sure  of  that  now.  And 
after  a  few  more  discouraging  adventures  in  the  upper  re 
gions  of  the  employing  world,  he  turned  his  attention  to  the 
factories. 

He  really  did  not  mind  working  in  a  factory,  he  told  him 
self,  since  it  would  only  be  for  a  while  —  it  would,  in  fact, 
enrich  his  experience,  and  give  him  something  more  to  write 


360  Moon-Calf 

about  when  he  came  to  do  his  novel.  He  was  commencing 
to  think  about  his  novel  again.  .  .  .  But  there  seemed  to  be 
no  jobs  in  the  factories,  though  he  went  to  every  one  in 
which  he  could  by  any  stretch  of  fancy  conceive  himself  as 
employable. 

He  hated  to  go  back  to  Joyce  every  other  evening  with 
the  news  that  he  had  failed.  The  weather  added  to  his  dis 
comfort,  for  it  was  rainy  and  gloomy,  and  in  the  evenings 
he  had  to  sit  with  Joyce  in  Uncle  Jim's  parlour,  instead  of 
playing  outdoors,  or  going  to  the  Cabin.  He  was  too  im 
patient  to  read  to  her,  and  somehow  he  did  not  feel  in  the 
mood  for  love-making.  She  would  sit  sewing  on  some 
dress  that  she  was  making,  and  he  slouched  moodily  beside 
her  on  the  sofa.  And  then  the  first  clear  evening  of  the 
week  came,  and  he  wanted  to  go  to  the  Cabin.  But  he  did 
not  want  to  suggest  it.  ...  He  felt  somehow  that  he  was 
not  in  a  position  to  take  the  lead  in  amatory  enterprise. 
Truth  to  tell,  deep  beneath  his  conscious  thoughts,  he  was 
experiencing  a  feeling  of  relief  that  their  love-making  had 
not  so  far  led  to  any  desperate  consequences;  and  he  was 
not  at  the  moment  willing  to  undertake  the  responsibility  for 
future  possibilities.  He  was  more  discouraged  than  he  was 
aware.  His  first  confidence  had  been  genuine  enough;  but 
the  effect  of  being  refused  employment  day  after  day  was 
undermining  his  egotism;  and  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
unacknowledged  even  to  himself,  was  a  profound  disbelief 
in  his  economic  success.  He  no  longer  consoled  himself 
with  the  thought  of  that  job  on  the  Record;  he  had  simply 
ceased  to  hope  for  it.  The  manhood  he  had  acquired  by 
virtue  of  easy  success  during  the  past  two  years  had  given 
way  at  the  first  touch  of  hostile  reality,  and  he  was  again 
utterly  and  hopelessly  a  child  —  a  lost  child,  groping  in  the 
darkness,  and  afraid  to  admit  his  fears.  .  .  .  His  childish 
ness  reflected  itself  in  his  attitude  toward  Joyce;  she  felt, 
though  she  did  not  understand,  his  lack  of  enterprise  toward 
her.  She  had  idealized  and  doubtless  exaggerated  his  bold 
ness;  and  now  she  saw  only  that  in  some  way,  of  his  own 


Economics  361 

volition,  he  had  ceased  his  courtship  of  her.  At  first  she 
thought  it  was  because  he  was  worrying  about  the  loss  of 
his  position;  but  she  took  his  prospects  at  their  face  value, 
and  did  not  understand  why  he  should  be  so  dour.  He  was 
acting  strangely.  She  was  unexpectedly  patient.  But  be 
neath  her  patience  was  pride  —  and  sensitiveness.  So, 
when  he  waited  for  her  to  make  some  advance,  he  waited  in 
vain.  She  continued  to  sew  on  her  frock,  and  they  spent 
a  clear  evening  most  inexcusably,  as  it  seemed  to  both  of 
them,  in  the  stuffy  parlour. 

He  talked  to  Joyce  a  little  about  his  novel  —  the  novel  he 
wanted  to  write.  He  did  not  tell  her  how  much  it  had  be 
gun  to  occupy  his  thoughts.  It  was  with  him,  now,  every 
moment.  As  he  went  from  employer  to  employer,  tramping 
the  streets  or  waiting  in  offices,  he  was  seeing  its  scenes  un 
fold  in  his  mind.  It  had  become  suddenly  real;  it  took 
form,  unfolded  itself  with  what  seemed  to  Felix  a  rhythmic 
splendour  of  incident,  in  his  imagination.  .  .  .  He  wanted, 
with  a  kind  of  nostalgia,  to  write  that  novel.  But  he  con 
tinued  to  look  for  a  job. 

It  was  perhaps  no  accident  that  in  the  imagined  novel  a 
revolutionary  young  hero  was  dealing  masterfully  with  cir 
cumstances  in  general,  and  with  a  young  woman  of  the 
bourgeoisie  in  particular,  in  just  the  way  that  Felix  was 
finding  it  impossible  to  do  in  real  life.  .  .  . 

In  the  course  of  his  search  for  work,  he  went  to  the  gov 
ernment  arsenal  on  Stone  Island,  and  interviewed  the  Com 
mandant  —  whom  he  remembered  having  met  socially  one 
evening,  a  year  or  more  ago,  at  the  home  of  one  of  his  bour 
geois  friends.  The  Commandant  bespoke  him  courteously 
enough,  to  the  usual  effect.  .  .  .  But  something  in  the  mili 
tary  manner  of  that  official  annoyed  Felix ;  his  air  somehow 
placed  the  dusty  applicant  in  the  vast  category  of  the  utterly 
unimportant.  And  though  that  might  be  philosophically 
just,  Felix  was  not  willing  to  be  so  disposed  of  by  a  man  in 
uniform.  "A  superior  doorkeeper!"  he  said  to  himself, 
and  tramped  home  angrily.  As  he  went,  a  line  from  Mar- 


362  Moon-Calf 

lowe's  Tamburlaine  came  into  his  head  —  a  line  that  was  a 
promise  of  the  victory  of  the  humble  shepherd  over  the 
captains  and  kings  of  earth;  and  he  repeated  it  to  himself, 
until  it  changed  into  a  song : 

Shepherd  of  thoughts,  by  day  and  night 
My  watch  upon  the  hills  I  keep; 
The  captains  scorn  me,  passing  by  — 
A  simple  tender  of  the  sheep. 
But  scorn  for  scorn  I  give  them  back, 
And  in  my  heart  I  think  of  this  — 
They  shall  bozv  low  when  I  shall  ride 
In  triumph  through  Persepolis! 

Having  effected  this  poetical  revenge  upon  the  unsuspect 
ing  military  man,  Felix  with  renewed  self-respect  continued 
his  search.  But  he  found  no  job. 

He  had  been  engaged  in  these  fruitless  and  discouraging 
efforts  for  three  weeks  when  Tom  Alden  returned  from  his 
visit  to  Chicago. 

2 

Tom  was  uncommunicative  upon  the  subject  of  "  the  girl 
in  Chicago."  But  he  was  bubbling  over  with  talk  about  a 
lot  of  other  things.  She,  it  seemed,  had  not  been  the  sole 
event  of  his  visit.  People,  old  friends  and  new,  writers  and 
adventurers  in  life  and  thought,  talked  with  for  long  hours 
at  the  Press  Club,  were  the  chief  theme  of  Tom's  enthusi 
astic  reminiscence. 

Felix  had  never  been  particularly  interested  in  Chicago; 
he  had  never  understood  why  Deems  Morgan,  for  instance, 
looked  forward  so  romantically  to  the  time  when  he  should 
go  there.  But  seeing  Chicago  through  Tom's  eyes,  Felix 
now  envisaged  it  as  a  place  of  all  places  where  one  like  him 
self  could  be  happy. 

In  Port  Royal  there  was  only  himself  and  Tom ;  in  Chi 
cago  there  were  many  like  them,  a  golden  fraternity.  Felix 
saw  as  a  living  and  contemporaneous  reality  the  fantasy  of 
the  Vagabondia  lyrics  — 

"Midnights  of  revel 
And  noon-days  of  song! " 


XLVII  Escape 


YES,  Chicago  must  be  a  wonderful  place.  .  .  .  Felix  was 
finding  it  increasingly  hard  to  go  to  Joyce  with  his 
perpetual  tale  of  failure.  Not  that  she  reproached 
him ;  but  somehow  he  knew  that  she  expected  him  each  time 
unfailingly  to  bring  better  news,  and  concealed  her  disap* 
pointment.  Not,  of  course,  that  it  really  mattered  so  much 
if  he  were  idle  a  month  or  so;  he  knew,  even  if  she  didn't, 
that  such  things  must  sometimes  happen.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  what  he  felt  to  be  her  unspoken  demand,  he  would 
have  dropped  his  search  for  a  while,  and  loafed;  but  she 
was  in  some  queer  way  his  conscience.  With  her  looking 
on,  he  must  keep  on  trying.  It  did  not  so  much  signify 
that  he  succeeded,  as  that  he  did  not  cease  to  try.  .  .  .  She 
would  never  know  how  much  he  hated  to  ask  for  work  — 
how  much  loathing  and  shame  and  hate  he  had  to  overcome 
to  make  that  simple  request  each  time  from  an  indifferent 
employer;  nor  how  much  the  inevitable  failure  unnerved 
him  when  it  happened. 

It  was  pleasanter  to  be  with  Tom,  at  this  period,  than 
with  Joyce.  After  one  brief  discussion  of  his  economic  sit 
uation,  in  which  the  only  advice  that  Tom  had  to  offer  was 
to  have  another  drink  anyway,  the  subject  was  never  men 
tioned.  In  the  world  which  he  inhabited  with  Tom,  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  needing  a  job;  there  was  no  such  word 
as  fail  in  the  bright  lexicon  of  their  discourse.  They  in 
habited  a  region  of  ideas  and  boon-companionship.  Tom 
did  not  meet  him  with  an  unspoken  question  in  his  eyes  as 
to  whether  he  had  established  himself  in  the  world  of  eco 
nomic  usefulness.  Tom  had  not  established  himself  in  that 
world.  It  was  several  years  since  he  had  written  anything 

363 


364 


Moon-Calf 


for  money.  The  legacy  from  a  relative  upon  which  he  had 
subsisted  during  this  time  was  almost  exhausted.  He  too 
was  poor ;  but  what  he  had  was  his  friend's.  He  had  never 
really  cared  about  making  a  living;  and  now  that  he  was 
alone,  with  no  woman  about  to  remind  him  of  worldly 
values,  he  had  ceased  to  pretend  to  care.  His  companion 
ship  was  an  escape  for  Felix  from  the  more  exigent  world 
of  reality  in  which  Joyce,  by  her  very  presence,  bound  him 
fast. 

"  It's  devilish  hot  in  this  garret,"  he  said  one  day  to 
Felix,  who  was  communing  with  him  instead  of  tramping 
the  streets  in  search  of  non-existent  jobs.  "  Let's  go  out  in 
the  country." 

"  Where?  "asked  Felix. 

"  I'll  show  you,"  said  Tom.  "  We've  just  time  to  catch  the 
four  o'clock  train." 


The  train  carried  them  outside  the  city  a  few  miles  to  a 
village,  and  a  little  beyond  it  Tom  pointed  out  what  seemed 
from  the  distance  to  be  a  tiny  abandoned  farm. 

"  I  tried  to  raise  chickens  here  one  summer,"  said  Tom,  as 
they  walked  along  the  road  toward  the  place.  "  Not  with 
great  success.  It  was  left  to  me,"  he  explained,  "  by  my 
aunt,  together  with  an  old  negro  servant  who  had  been  in  the 
family  for  years.  He's  here,  too." 

"  Left  you  a  negro  servant  ?  "  said  Felix,  puzzled. 

"  Sort  of.  It's  understood  that  he's  to  stay  here  and  take 
care  of  the  place  for  me.  Sometimes,  when  I  come  here  and 
run  things,  and  there's  any  work  to  do,  he  gets  paid  real 
money.  I  keep  thinking  I'll  rent  another  patch  of  land,  and 
go  in  for  truck-farming.  We'll  see  whether  he's  let  the 
place  go  completely  to  rack  and  ruin. —  There  he  is,  potter 
ing  around  in  the  garden.  Hello,  Ned !  " 

The  ancient  figure  straightened  up,  with  a  welcoming 
flash  of  white  teeth,  took  off  his  hat,  and  came  down  to  the 
gate  to  meet  them.  "  Howdy,  Mist'  Tom !  Howdy !  Ah 


Escape  365 

was  jes'  thinkin'  it  was  time  fo'  you  to  be  comin'  down." 

11  This  is  my  friend  Felix.  How's  your  rheumatism, 
Ned?" 

"  Howdy-do,  Mist'  Felix.  Not  so  bad  jes'  now,  Mist' 
Tom." 

'*  How  are  the  cabbages  this  year  ?  " 

"  Pretty  po'ly,  Mist'  Tom.  Bad  yea'  fo'  cabbages.  But 
Ah  think  Ah  c'n  fix  yo'-all  a  nice  dish  of  strawberries." 

"  You  didn't  forget  to  set  them  over  this  time  ?  " 

*'  No,  suh.  An'  they's  some  mighty  nice-lcokin'  chickens, 
too.  How  would  yo'  like  some  fried  chicken  fo'  supper?" 

"  Not  a  bad  idea.  I'll  take  a  look  around  the  place  with 
you  later.  You  can  go  and  kill  a  chicken  for  us  now." 

"Yes  suh,  Mist'  Tom.  Yes,  suh."  And  Ned  went  off 
briskly  in  the  direction  of  the  hen-houses. 

"  The  house  certainly  needs  some  paint,"  said  Tom. 
"  And  if  there's  anything  in  that  garden,  you  can't  see  it  for 
the  weeds. —  What  do  you  think  of  it?" 

'*  I  don't  see  why  you  live  anywhere  else !  "  said  Felix. 

'*  I  wonder  that,  too,"  said  Tom,  "  whenever  I  get  back 
here.  But  after  I've  been  back  for  a  while,  I  realize  why  it 
is  I  never  stay  here.  .  .  .  Loneliness." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Felix  doubtfully. 

"  I  don't  think  you've  ever  known  real  loneliness,"  said 
Tom.  "You've  known  it  only  as  a  sense  of  wanting  people. 
But  when  I  have  it,  it  comes  to  me  as  a  conviction  that  there 
aren't  any  people.  It's  a  black  abysm  into  which  I  sink 
further  and  further  —  until  I  rescue  myself  from  the 
thought  of  suicide  by  going  back  to  town.  It's  a  pity  —  I 
like  this  place." 

Tom  led  Felix  into  the  house,  and  into  a  little  room  with 
a  fireplace,  and  a  shelf  of  books  meandering  about  from  wall 
to  wall.  He  went  up  fondly  to  an  old  desk,  upon  which 
some  dusty  papers  lay,  apparently  undisturbed  for  a  year. 
"  Here's  where  I  wrote  my  first  novel,"  he  said.  "  I  have  a 
fancy  that  I  can  write  better  at  this  desk.  Whenever  I 
see  it,  I  want  to  write  again."  He  rested  his  hands  upon 


366 


Moon-Calf 


it,  as  though  to  receive  its  influence  like  an  electric  fluid. 
"  I  can  see  my  new  book  taking  shape  already,"  he  said 
whimsically. 

"  Why  don't  you  stay  here  and  write  it  ?  "  asked  Felix. 

"  I  ought  to  stay  here,"  said  Tom.  '*  And  get  things  in 
order.  Roxie  may  be  coming  out  here  next  year.  .  .  .  It's 
too  late  in  the  season  to  do  anything  about  truck-farming 
now,  but  I  could  make  my  plans  for  next  year,  and  get 
things  straightened  out.  And  write.  Yes,  I've  every 
excuse  this  summer  for  writing  a  novel." 

"  Do,"  urged  Felix. 

*'  The  only  trouble  is  —  lack  of  society,"  said  Tom. 

"  I  forgot  that,"  said  Felix. 

"  Come  on,  I'll  show  you  around.  There's  a  beautiful 
woods  beyond." 

3 

After  dinner,  as  they  sat  smoking  in  the  little  room  with 
the  desk  and  books,  Tom  said  thoughtfully,  "  Why  don't 
you  write  a  novel,  Felix  ?  " 

Felix  flushed  with  pleasure.  "  I'd  like  to,"  he  said.  "  I 
have  a  theme  in  mind.  But  — "  he  hesitated. 

"  You're  looking  for  a  job.     Is  that  it  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

Tom  smoked  a  while.  "  The  only  job  you  are  particularly 
interested  in  is  the  newspaper  one,  isn't  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes." 

'*  Well,"  said  Tom,  "  here's  my  idea.  You  come  out  here 
and  stay  with  me  this  summer,  and  we'll  both  write  our 
novels.  If  anything  turns  up  that  you  want,  you  can  take 
it.  If  not,  you'll  have  your  novel  done.  And  you'll  make 
it  possible  for  me  to  do  mine  —  to  start  it,  anyway.  What 
do  you  say  ?  " 

The  invitation  was  immensely  attractive  to  Felix.  He 
could  not  conscientiously  accept  it  outright ;  he  talked  of 
the  likelihood  of  something  turning  up  within  the  next  few 
weeks  on  the  Record;  but  he  agreed  to  come  out  "  for  a 


Escape  367 

while."  Having  thus  salved  his  conscience,  he  entered  with 
Tom  into  a  fascinating  discussion  of  the  technique  of  the 
novel,  and  what  they  respectively  wanted  to  do  in  their 
forthcoming  works,  which  lasted  far  into  the  night. 


Felix  went  to  town  the  next  noon  with  Tom,  planning  to 
return  with  him  that  evening.  He  explained  to  Alice  that 
he  was  going  to  spend  a  month  in  the  country  with  Tom 
Alden.  She  was  impressed  and  pleased.  He  explained  to 
Joyce,  over  the  telephone,  that  he  was  going  to  stay  with 
Tom  a  week.  She  said  "  how  nice  that  would  be,"  but 
Felix  felt  a  lack  of  approval  in  her  voice. 

"  Perhaps  you  can  come  out  and  visit  us?  "  he  suggested. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  really  think  I  can.  I'm  going 
to  be  busy  with  the  dressmaker." 

"Then,"  he  asked,  "shall  I  see  you  Sunday  evening?" 

"  I  expect  you  will  want  to  stay  in  the  country  over 
Sunday.  Better  make  it  Monday  evening." 

"  Very  well,"  he  replied. 

The  conversation  ended  with  '*  good-bye,  dear,"  but  he 
felt  something  cold  in  her  manner.  Perhaps  he  should  have 
gone  to  see  her.  .  .  .  What  was  the  matter  with  her  lately? 
They  were  not  like  lovers  at  all  any  more.  Was  she  dis 
appointed  in  him?  Had  she  ceased  to  believe  in  him? 
Whatever  the  reason,  their  companionship  had  changed 
from  poetry  to  prose.  .  .  . 

"Are  we  growing  estranged?"  he  asked  himself. 


XLVIII  Quarrels 


WHEN  Felix  saw  Joyce  on  Monday  evening  he 
told  her  that  he  was  going  to  stay  with  Tom  a 
while  longer,  and  described  with  enthusiasm  the 
novels  they  were  planning  to  write.     She  was  occupied  with 
that  damnable  sewing  again.     She  made  no  comment  on 
his  projected  novel,  but  said,  when  he  had  finished.  '*  You 
aren't  going  to  stay  there  while  you  write  all  that,  are  you  ?  " 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Felix.  "After  I  get  a  good  start,  I 
can  work  on  it  at  night."  But  her  question  rankled.  Why 
should  she  be  so  ungenerous  about  his  little  holiday?  She 
had  quit  work  herself  ;  but  —  of  course !  —  that  was  dif 
ferent.  It  was  all  right  for  her  to  idle,  and  wrong  for  him ! 

He  did  not  say  any  of  these  things,  but  when  a  little  later 
she  uttered  some  phrase  in  slight  disparagement  of  his  friend 
Tom  (though  it  was  only  the  suggestion  that  writing  a  novel 
wasn't  precisely  getting  the  place  ready  for  Roxie  to  live 
there  next  year),  Felix  rushed  to  his  defence. 

"  It  isn't  true,"  he  said,  "  that  Tom  is  an  idler !  There  is 
a  difference  between  the  aristocracy  of  intellect  and  mere 
vagabondage.  Tom  — " 

"  Why,"  she  protested,  interrupting  his  eloquence,  "  I 
didn't  say  anything  of  the  sort !  " 

He  realized  that  her  pfhrase  was  but  meagre  evidence,  and 
so  he  said,  "  But  you  don't  like  him." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  I  do  like  him,"  she  asserted. 
"  I  think  he's  a  charming  person.  But  if  you  want  my 
opinion,  I  don't  think  he's  the  best  —  influence  in  the  world 
for  you. —  Not  that  it's  any  of  my  affair." 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  criticized  him  in  this 
way.  Always  her  criticisms  had  been  the  protests  of  a 

368 


Quarrels  369 

follower  against  the  rashness  of  a  leader  —  somewhat  as 
Columbus's  seamen  might  have  cried  out  against  his  wild 
notion  that  the  earth  was  round,  while  at  the  same  time 
recognizing  that  for  good  or  ill  they  were  at  his  command. 
But  this  last  speech  of  hers  was  as  from  an  infinitely  wise 
person  to  a  wayward  child:  it  was  insufferably  patronizing. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  In  what  way  is  he  a  bad  in 
fluence  ? "  He  particularly  resented  the  word  influence, 
even  more  than  its  context.  He  would  almost  equally  have 
objected  to  having  his  friend  called  a  "  good  influence." 
He  did  not  wish  to  believe  that  he  was  being  influenced  by 
anybody. 

"  I  didn't  say  bad,"  she  replied  with  irritating  calmness. 
"  I  don't  think  there  is  anything  bad  about  him.  But  I 
do  think  he  is  —  weak." 

"  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea  what  you  mean,"  he  returned. 
"  But  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  you  regard  me  also  as  a  weak 
character." 

"  Well,  not  exactly !  "  She  laughed,  and  looked  at  him 
with  a  flash  of  her  old  affectionate  humour.  But  he  main 
tained  an  impassive  demeanour.  4<  You  don't  try  to  under 
stand  me,  Felix,"  she  complained.  "  You're  quarrelling  with 
my  words,  picking  at  everything  I  say !  " 

"  Well,  suppose  you  try  to  say  what  you  do  mean,"  he 
insisted. 

"  I've  forgotten  what  I  meant,  now,"  she  replied  in  an 
annoyed  tone.  "  What  is  the  difference,  anyway !  " 

"  That's  another  thing,"  he  said  slowly.  "  What's  the 
difference!  And:  It's  none  of  my  affair!  What  am  I  to 
understand  by  those  remarks  ?  " 

"  Well,  what  do  you  understand  by  them  ?  "  she  countered 
defiantly,  biting  a  thread. 

"If  they  mean  anything  at  all,  they  mean  that  you  do  not 
wish  to  concern  yourself  with  my  affairs." 

"  I  thought  that  was  what  you  believed  in,  Felix  —  perfect 
freedom.  What  right  have  I  to  criticize  you  ?  "  and  she  bent 
over  her  sewing. 


37°  Moon-Calf 

"  And  that  means,"  he  said,  "  that  you  do  wish  to  criticize 
me." 

"  Does  it  ?  "  she  asked  quietly.  "  Well,  since  you're  such 
a  mind-reader,  you  might  go  on  and  tell  me  what  I  ought 
to  criticize  you  for.  You  must  have  something  on  your 
conscience." 

"  I'm  not  aware  of  anything  on  my  conscience,"  he  said 
challengingly.  "  Are  you  ?  " 

"  Not  unless  it's  your  bad  manners." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  my  manners  ?  "  He  was  flush 
ing.  If  it  had  been  his  morals  that  stood  in  question,  he 
would  have  been  indignant,  rather  than  alarmed  and  uneasy. 
His  manners,  such  as  they  were,  had  been  too  recent  an 
acquisition  for  him  to  bear  such  a  charge  with  equanimity. 

"  I  merely  meant,  Felix,"  she  said  with  exasperated 
patience,  "  that  it's  not  supposed  to  be  good  manners  to  sit 
and  deliberately  quarrel  with  the  girl  you  are  calling  on." 

"  You  should  say,"  Felix  corrected  her  bitterly,  "  the 
young  lady  I  am  calling  on." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  I  admit,"  he  said  painfully,  "  that  my  manners  are 
crude.  But  they  used  to  please  you  well  enough." 

"  They  certainly  haven't  improved  since  you've  been  stay 
ing  with  your  friend  Tom,"  she  flashed. 

"  Tom  once  more !  "  he  observed. 

'*  That,  evidently,  is  a  sacred  subject,"  she  said.  "  Com 
mon  people  must  not  criticize  Tom." 

"  They  can  criticize  him  all  they  want  to,"  said  Felix, 
"  if  they'll  just  say  what  they  mean.  What  I  can't  stand 
is  this  avoidance  of  anything  specific.  So  far  as  I  can  make 
out,  you  say  that  Tom  is  a  bad  influence  upon  me  —  par 
ticularly  upon  my  manners.  I  should  think  the  contrary 
would  be  the  case,  myself.  But  if  you'll  just  tell  me  one 
single  thing  in  which  I  have  transgressed,  presumably  under 
his  influence,  I'll  try  to  amend  it." 

'*  I  think  this  is  a  silly  conversation,"  she  said. 

"  So  do  I.     But  if  you  will  just  tell  me — " 


Quarrels  371 

"  Oh !  —  well,  if  you  must,  then  I  think  you  might  have 
some  regard  for  the  opinion  of  my  relatives,  and  my  own 
position  here.  You  come  to  see  me  looking  like  a  tramp." 

Felix  glanced  down  at  his  clothes.  He  had  walked  in 
that  afternoon  with  Tom,  and  his  shoes  were  covered  with 
dust.  His  shirt  was  open  at  the  throat  for  coolness'  sake, 
and  his  necktie  was  in  his  pocket,  where  he  had  stuffed  it 
on  the  journey.  He  took  out  the  necktie  with  so  shame 
faced  an  air  that  she  laughed  and  came  over  and  kissed 
him  and  knotted  the  tie  for  him.  "  That's  better ! "  she 
said. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  said  Felix.  "  But  I  don't  think  you  really 
ought  to  blame  it  on  Tom." 

She  suddenly  became  angry.  "  Oh,  confound  Tom !  I'm 
sick  of  hearing  about  him !  " 

Her  voice  had  risen,  and  there  was  a  lull  in  the  talk  in 
her  uncle's  library.  "  We  mustn't  let  them  hear  us  quarrel 
ling,"  she  whispered.  "  Come  on,  let's  go  out  for  a  walk." 


But  that  — which  he  set  down  gloomily  in  his  mental 
record  as  their  first  quarrel  —  was  a  mere  prelude  to  the 
discords  which  followed,  as  Felix  came  in  on  successive 
Monday  evenings.  He  had  had  to  provoke  her  to  criticism 
that  time ;  but  subsequently  it  seemed  that  she  needed  no 
provocation.  It  was  not  only  his  manners,  his  clothes,  his 
forgetfulness,  his  indifference  to  what  other  people  thought 
—  it  was  his  whole  attitude  toward  life  that  came  under 
the  casual  but  stinging  lash  of  her  words.  And  when  he 
defended  himself,  as  eloquently  as  of  old  when  they  had 
their  fierce  debates,  she  was  unmoved.  She  would  only 
smile  cruelly,  and  say,  as  on  one  occasion,  "  I'm  afraid 
that's  not  a  very  practical  view." 

Of  course  it  wasn't  practical!  It  was  what  the  whole 
world  called  impractical,  visionary,  mad.  But  since  when 
had  he  given  her  any  right  to  expect  him  to  look  at  things 
from  the  world's  point  of  view?  She  knew  what  he  was 


372  Moon-Calf 

like.  .  .  .  And  there  had  been  a  time  when  she  loved  him 
for  being  that  way.  "  I  like  crazy  people,"  she  had  said. 
Strange,  that  she  would  now  quarrel  with  him  for  precisely 
those  qualities  which  had  once  allured  her!  She  had  taken 
him  as  her  lover  because  he  was  what  he  was.  He  had  not 
changed.  It  was  she  who  had  changed.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  pleasant  to  come  from  the  glowing  fervours 
of  discussion  and  composition  to  face  this  changed  and  alien 
creature,  who  seemed  to  take  pleasure  in  tormenting  him, 
and  who  made  it  up  most  inadequately  by  an  occasional 
contrite  kiss  at  his  departure.  Why  did  he  come?  He 
did  not  know.  He  only  knew  that  he  must  come,  if  only 
to  receive  these  hurts.  He  was  in  love  with  her,  and  must 
endure  what  she  chose  to  inflict  upon  him.  .  .  .  But  there 
was  something  more  to  it  than  that.  He  was  vaguely 
aware  that  his  idyllic  existence  with  Tom  would  be  somehow 
flavourless  without  the  savour  which  she,  even  in  such  ways 
as  this,  provided.  These  very  hurts  were  something  he 
wanted,  something  which  he  must  leave  his  intellectual 
paradise  to  come  and  get.  .  .  .  He  had  to  know  what  she 
thought  of  him,  however  ill  it  was;  and  though  her  criti 
cism  seemed  sometimes  stupidly  malevolent,  he  could  not 
but  always  take  it  to  heart. 

He  had  never,  since  that  first  time,  spoken  to  her  of  the 
novel  he  was  writing,  except  to  report  progress.  He  had 
refrained  from  speaking  of  it,  as  it  were  in  self-defense. 
It  had  remained  immune  from  her  criticism.  But  one  eve 
ning  she  laid  violent  hands  on  that,  too.  .  .  . 

"  How  long  is  your  book  going  to  be  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  told  her  he  hoped  only  about  seventy  thousand  words. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  even  seventy  thousand  words,  well 
interspersed  with  interesting  discussion  and  tobacco  smoke, 
ought  to  suffice  to  keep  two  good  friends  going  for  the 
summer.  Far  away,"  she  added,  "  from  the  hot  uninterest 
ing  town." 

Felix  understood  her  to  be  accusing  him  of  using  the 
novel  as  an  excuse  for  laziness  —  for  not  trying  to  get  a 


Quarrels  373 

job.     He  could  not  reply.     But  if  that  was  what  she  thought 
of  him  — ! 

Why  did  she  want  so  to  hurt  him?  Why  should  she 
wish  to  deal  him  these  wounds?  He  would  never  let  her 
know  how  deep  they  went.  .  .  .  But  why  was  she  so  cruel? 
What  was  the  satisfaction  she  found  in  thus  tormenting 
him?  She  was  behaving  like  —  and  suddenly  the  phrase 
came  to  him  —  like  a  wife!  "Good  God!"  he  thought. 
"  Truly  I  might  as  well  be  married  to  her !  " 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  was  wondering  why  we  quarrel  this  way  with  each 
other." 

"  You  and  your  friend  Tom  never  quarrel,  I  suppose." 

"  No." 

"  I  thought  not.  It  must  be  an  ideal  existence.  I  wonder 
you  can  bear  to  come  and  see  me  here,  ever." 

"  I  wish  I  could  get  you  to  come  out  and  see  us,"  he 
replied  evasively. 

"  No,"  she  said.  "  Never.  And  by  the  way,  how  long 
do  you  think  you  will  be  staying  out  there  ?  " 

"Not  much  longer,"  said  Felix  guiltily.     "Why?" 

"  Because  —  well,  you  were  only  going  to  stay  a  week 
at  first,  and  you've  been  there  nearly  two  months.  That's 
a  pretty  long  visit.  I  know  your  friend  Tom  is  the  most 
hospitable  soul  in  the  world,  but  I  think  you  ought  to  be 
careful  not  to  impose  on  his  hospitality." 

Felix  burned.  So  that  was  it.  He  was  letting  some 
one  else  support  him,  instead  of  earning  his  own  living.  .  .  . 
Well,  it  was  true.  What  could  he  say? 

"I  don't  think  you  quite  understand  Tom,"  he  began. 
He  was  going  to  tell  her  that  Tom's  novel  would  —  or 
might  —  be  left  unfinished  if  he  went  away  now;  that  he 
was,  in  a  sense,  doing  a  favour  to  Tom  by  staying.  But 
she  rose  quickly  before  he  sould  say  any  of  these  things  and 
cried  through  clenched  teeth,  4<  Please  don't  tell  me  any 
thing  more  about  Tom.  If  you  do  I  shall  scream." 

Instead  she  began  to  laugh,  almost  hysterically. 


XLIX  Interim 


THE  next  day  Felix  explained  to  Tom  that  he 
would  have  to  leave  him  by  the  end  of  the  month. 
That  would  give  them  two  weeks  in  which  to 
plough  through  the  difficulties  under  which  they  were  now 
labouring,  after  their  first  confident  beginnings ;  and  then 
they  would  both  have  such  good  starts  on  their  novels  that 
it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  them  not  to  go  ahead, 
under  whatever  circumstances.  Tom  accepted  the  decision 
without  questions,  and  they  set  to  work  with  renewed 
energy;  interspersing,  so  far  as  Felix  could  manage  it, 
fewer  discussions  and  less  tobacco  smoke  between  the  words. 

But  that  decision  was  not  quite  enough  to  set  Felix's 
conscience  at  rest.  The  next  day  he  went  down  to  the 
village  and  called  up  Madison  on  the  telephone. 

He  was  convinced  that  it  was  no  use.  But  to  his  sur 
prise  he  was  told  that  there  would  be  very  likely  "  some 
thing  doing  "  in  the  next  few  weeks.  He  would  drop  Felix 
a  note,  he  said.  .  .  . 

Felix's  confidence  immediately  rose;  he  began  to  be  im 
patient  of  work  on  the  novel,  and  put  in  a  restless  after 
noon  typing  twenty  poems  and  sending  them  off  to  a  dozen 
magazines.  And  when  he  went  down  to  the  village  post- 
office  to  mail  them  he  found  a  note  from  Joyce. 

An  enigmatic  but  comforting  note ! 

Dear  —  I'm  sorry  I  behaved  so  last  night.  If  you  only 
knew!  I  cried  afterward  —  if  that's  any  satisfaction  to  you 
to  know.  I'm  a  silly  girl.  Please  forgive  me.  J. 

He  composed  an  elaborate  reply  explaining  that  his  feel- 

374 


Interim  375 

ings  had  not  really  been  hurt.  And  at  the  post-office  next 
day  there  was  another  note  —  the  second  in  a  bewildering 
series  that  began  to  arrive  daily  : 

P.  F. —  /  suppose  you  think  I'm  all  sorts  of  different 
persons.  But  I  can't  help  it.  The  whole  thing  is  too  much 
for  me.  I  wish  you  were  here.  Ever  and  ever  yours,  J. 

He  would  have  gone  to  town  in  response  to  that  appeal 
except  that  this  was  the  evening  dedicated  by  recent  custom 
to  the  offensive  J.  H. ;  and  even  her  note  did  not  seem 
sufficient  excuse  for  interfering  with  her  arrangements  of 
that  sort.  The  next  day  came  this : 

Nice  letter,  F.  F.  I'm  glad  you  think  of  me.  I'm  sorry 
to  have  bothered  you.  It's  all  right.  J.  T. 

And  the  next  day  two  more  notes.  The  first  one  that 
Felix  opened  said  only : 

Forgive  me,  Felix,  I  didn't  mean  it.     Truly,  Joyce. 

Felix  did  not  understand  what  he  had  to  forgive  her  for 
until  he  opened  the  second  letter,  which  apparently  had  been 
mailed  first.  It  read : 

Felix,  I  think  we  have  been  making  a  great  mistake. 
We  don't  really  love  each  other.  I  have  been  thinking 
things  out,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  we  have  been  behaving 
like  wild  and  reckless  children.  It  has  been  beautiful,  but 
it  isn't  love. 

Read  in  their  proper  order,  these  notes  were  rather  re 
assuring.  They  were  better,  by  far,  than  the  hardness  he 
had  had  to  encounter  of  late  when  he  went  to  see  her. 
Being  away  from  her  a  little  was  not  a  bad  thing,  it  seemed 
—  and  apparently  his  letters,  with  their  candid  eloquence, 


376  Moon-Calf 

were  able  to  produce  an  effect  upon  her  which  he  could  not 
make  in  person.  He  knew  that  when  he  saw  her  she  would 
try  to  ignore  the  confession  of  emotional  distraction  in 
these  letters  —  she  would  be  calm  and  cold,  and  he  would 
have  to  argue  with  her.  ...  It  was  better  this  way. 

Besides,  he  was  in  the  clinch  of  a  literary  difficulty;  the 
crucial  chapter  of  his  novel  was  proving  damnably  hard 
to  do.  He  felt  that  if  he  could  put  in  three  more  days  of 
uninterrupted  work  on  it,  the  thing  would  be  done,  and  the 
rest  would  be  easy  sailing;  but  if  he  went  in  to  see  her  on 
Monday,  he  would  muddle  it. 

Still,  he  was  doubtful  about  putting  off  his  evening  with 
her,  until  he  found  at  the  post-office  on  Saturday  a  long 
and  cheerful  and  gossipy  letter  from  her,  about  nothing  in 
particular,  but  seeming  to  indicate  a  happy  frame  of  mind. 
She  hoped  he  was  getting  lots  of  work  done  on  "  The  Novel." 
She  told  also  of  reading  various  books,  including  Bernard 
Shaw's  Dramatic  Opinions;  they  reminded  her,  she  said, 
of  the  things  Felix  used  to  write  about  plays.  She  hoped 
her  letters  weren't  taking  his  mind  from  his  work ;  because 
—  she  wanted  him  to  know  —  she  was  really  interested  in 
his  work.  He  must  read  The  Novel  to  her  as  soon  as  he 
came  to  a  good  stopping-place.  She  sent  him  many  kisses. 
Felix  felt  encouraged  to  add  a  postscript  to  the  long 
letter  he  had  written,  saying  that  as  he  was  just  in  the  middle 
of  a  very  troublesome  chapter,  he  didn't  think  he  had  better 
come  in  on  Monday.  But  he  wanted  to  see  her  very  soon. 
On  Sunday,  before  she  could  have  received  his  letter, 
there  were  two  more  missives  for  him.  One  was  another 
long  and  cheerful  letter  all  about  books,  and  Bernard  Shaw, 
and  full  of  funny  descriptions  of  her  uncle  and  aunt,  who 
had  just  been  celebrating  their  wedding  anniversary.  .  .  . 
The  other  was  an  unsigned  line : 

/  need  you. 

In  the  same  mail  was,  astonishingly,  a  letter  from  the 
Century,  accepting  two  of  his  poems.     He  sent  on  the  letter 


Interim  377 

of  acceptance  to  Joyce,  annotating  it,  "  I'll  come  in  some 
time  during  week." 

That  phrase,  /  need  you,  haunted  him  all  day  Sunday, 
and  he  had  half  made  up  his  mind  to  go  in  on  Monday  after 
all ;  but  on  Monday  morning  there  was  another  note  — 

Don't  let  me  bother  you,  Felix.  I  get  lonely  sometimes, 
that's  all.  I  will  be  awfully  glad  to  see  you. 


So  he  stayed  in  the  country,  and  plunged  once  more  into 
the  troublesome  chapter.  He  expected  to  hear  from  her 
about  the  acceptance  of  his  poem.  But  there  was  no  letter 
from  her  the  next  day,  nor  the  next.  But  there  came  a 
letter  from  Madison,  saying  '*  Come  in  to  see  me  Monday." 
He  wrote  to  Joyce,  saying  that  he  would  be  in  town  Monday 
and  that  he  would  probably  have  some  news  for  her. 

He  received  in  reply  a  short  queer  note  in  which  she  said 
to  be  sure  not  to  forget  to  come  up  Monday  evening;  and 
she,  too,  might  have  some  news  —  for  him. 

The  chapter  got  finished,  whether  well  or  ill;  and  Felix 
was  quite  ready  to  stop  work  on  it  for  a  while.  He  had  had 
a  good  holiday.  By  virtue  of  writing  on  the  novel,  he  had 
recovered  his  working  mood  —  it  was  an  easy  transition 
between  the  pleasures  oft  dreaming  and  the  discipline  of 
real  labour.  He  had  found  that  novels  were  hard  to  write 
—  harder  even  than  newspaper  stories;  he  would  be  glad 
to  get  back  to  work.  And  he  felt  that  when  once  he  was 
at  work  again,  Joyce  would  be  pleasant  to  him  once  more. 
He  had  a  suspicion  that  it  had  not  been  all  her  fault.  .  .  . 

With  her  last  note  on  the  table  before  him,  he  put  the 
finishing  touches  on  the  chapter  in  which  the  radical  young 
workingman  triumphantly  converts  the  beautiful  daughter 
of  the  bourgeoisie  to  his  theories ;  and  the  note  was  no  more 
than  a  vague  reminder  that  in  life,  as  distinct  from  fiction, 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  bourgeoisie  is  not,  even  after 
conversion,  as  free  from  ancient  slave-woman  psychology 


378 


Moon-Calf 


as  a  revolutionary  young  lover  could  wish.  Be  sure  not  to 
forget  —  stupid  feminine  malice !  He  put  the  note  firmly 
out  of  his  mind,  and  wrote  the  chapter  as  it  should  be 
written. 

3 

Finished,  synchronously  with  Tom's  crucial  episode,  the 
chapter  was  put  aside,  and  on  Sunday  evening  they  had  a 
final  orgy  of  talk  that  lasted  until  morning.  Tom  was 
going  to  stay  in  the  country  and  finish  his  book.  Felix 
promised  to  come  out  and  visit  him  sometimes. 

"  Good  luck  !  "  said  Tom,  and  Felix  took  the  train  to  town. 

He  saw  Madison,  who  said  that  all  was  well.  The  young 
man  whose  place  he  was  to  take  had  been  given  his  conge, 
and  Felix  could  start  in  to  work  the  following  Monday. 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Madison,  *'  you  write  poetry,  don't 
you?" 

Felix  admitted  it. 

*'  Well,  here's  something  you  can  do  in  the  meantime. 
We're  going  to  get  out  a  big  Port  Royal  edition,  sixty 
pages,  devoted  to  the  history  of  the  town,  with  pictures  of 
the  factories  and  buildings  and  business-men  and  so  forth. 
And  we'd  like  a  poem  about  Port  Royal  to  run  in  big  type, 
boxed,  on  the  front  page.  Suppose  you  do  that  between 
now  and  Monday,  eh?  " 

"  All  right,"  said  Felix.     "  I  will." 

Felix  had  a  faint  secret  scorn  for  the  idea  of  writing 
such  a  poem,  and  an  immense  gratification  at  having  been 
asked  to  do  it.  Somehow  it  was  good  to  be  back  in  the 
real  world,  in  which  you  worked  not  for  some  wholly 
impersonal  ideal  of  art,  but  for  ordinary  everyday  people. 
The  life  that  he  had  been  living  for  the  past  six  weeks 
seemed  to  Felix  a  dream.  He  was  glad  to  have  awaked. 

He  went  home,  put  on  his  best  clothes,  had  his  shoes 
shined  for  the  inspection  of  Joyce's  family,  if  they  were  so 
darn  interested  in  his  appearance,  and  after  dinner  hurried 
impatiently  to  her  house. 


Interim  379 

He  realized  that  a  single  sentence  of  hers  —  a  cruel 
sentence  —  had  effected  that  transformation.  To  her  words, 
which  had  so  hurt  him  at  the  time,  was  due  his  going  to 
Madison  and  getting  this  job ;  was  due  even  the  sending  of 
his  poems  to  the  Century;  was  due  the  fact  that  he  was 
back  in  the  real  world  —  with  her.  .  .  . 


L  "  And  still  a  Garden  by  the  Water  blows 


SHE  met  him  at  the  door  with  a  smile  he  had  not  seen 
for,  it  seemed  to  him,  ages.  "  It's  too  close  in  the 
house,  let's  go  out,"  she  said,  and  taking  his  arm  went 
gaily  down  the  street.  He  looked  at  her,  feeding  his  hungry 
heart  upon  her  smile,  and  upon  the  clear,  sweet  look  in  her 
eyes;  he  wanted  to  realize  to  the  full  that  the  change  in 
her  had  come  of  itself,  and  not  as  a  response  to  his  untold 
news. 

"  The  ice  has  broken  at  last,"  he  thought,  and  he  was 
very  glad  and  proud  that  he  had  held  his  own  through  the 
trying  time  of  their  immediate  past.  He  had  not  once  asked 
pity  of  her.  And  now  she  had  surrendered.  .  .  . 

He  told  her  of  his  good  fortune. 

"  Oh,  I'm  so  glad !  "  she  cried,  pressing  his  hand  warmly. 
"  And  not  only  for  your  sake,"  she  added  with  a  whimsical 
smile,  "  but  for  mine.  You  know,  Felix  — " 

"Yes?" 

"  It  doesn't  improve  your  disposition  a  bit  to  be  out  of 
luck.  And  I  did  so  want  you  to  be  nice  to  me  this  evening !  " 

"  Was  I  so  grouchy?  "  he  asked. 

"  Terribly,"  she  laughed.  "And  — and  not  only  that, 
Felix,  but  —  oh,  well,  never  mind.  It's  all  over  now.  You 
seem  to  be  your  real  self  again.  Thank  goodness ! " 

"  Poor  child !  "  he  said  penitently.  "  I  did  scold  you, 
didn't  I?" 

"  Oh,  it  wasn't  so  much  that  —  I  don't  mind  being  scolded 
a  little.  I  rather  like  it!  Maybe  it  was  that  you  didn't 
scold  me  enough !  I  mean,"  she  said,  "  in  the  old  days  — 

380 


A  Garden  by  the  Water  Blows    381 

well,  we  could  say  what  we  liked  to  one  another.  And  we 
did!  We  shared  all  our  thoughts.  .  .  ." 

"  Yes.  .  .  ." 

"  And  then  suddenly  we  didn't.  We  couldn't  talk  to  one 
another.  .  .  .  I've  no  doubt  it  was  my  fault,  too.  I  didn't 
tell  things  —  but  you  started  it.  ...  You  were  so — " 

"  What  didn't  you  tell?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  never  mind.     I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  later." 

*'  Oh,  very  well  —  don't  tell  me  if  you  don't  want  to." 

"  Now  you're  being  superior  again.  Be  careful  not  tu 
spoil  my  evening.  I  have  a  beautiful  one  planned.  Would 
you  condescend  to  go  to  the  Cabin  with  me,  Mr.  Fay?  " 

"Delighted,  Miss  Tennant.  —  But  isn't  it  going  to  rain? 
It's  been  threatening  to  all  day." 

"  We'll  chance  it,"  she  said. 


The  rain  came  when  they  were  half  way  to  their  destina 
tion.  *'  I  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  "  she  said. 

"  I  like  it,"  he  told  her.  But  the  rain,  which  had  begun 
as  a  soft  down-pour  of  warm  drops,  changed  with  the 
advent  of  a  chilly  wind  —  driving  black  clouds  before  it 
over  the  face  of  the  sky  —  into  a  storm.  Blackness  de 
scended  upon  them,  and  the  river  frothed  whitely  under  the 
impact  of  the  wind.  Joyce  buttoned  her  coat  about  her 
throat,  and  gripped  the  steering  wheel,  holding  the  nose  of 
the  boat  against  the  wind.  "  We'll  make  it,"  she  said. 

The  engine  stopped  crankily  two  or  three  times,  but 
whether  with  the  assistance  of  Felix's  hasty  amateur  mini 
strations  or  of  itself,  started  again  in  a  moment.  Once, 
in  the  trough  of  a  wave,  they  touched  bottom  in  the  shallow 
part  of  the  channel  as  they  headed  in  toward  their  island; 
they  could  feel  the  grinding  of  the  keel  over  the  pebbly  mud. 
"Safe  that  time!"  cried  Joyce,  pushing  a  strand  of  wet 
hair  out  of  her  eyes  with  her  fist.  "  Watch  the  engine ! " 
The  next  moment  they  struck  again,  and  the  engine  stopped, 
and  the  next  wave,  hitting  the  side  of  the  bow,  whirled  them 


382  Moon-Calf 

directly  about.  It  was  a  wild  moment,  but  somehow  the 
engine  started  once  more,  and  Joyce  got  the  boat  back  on  the 
course,  swearing  exultantly  between  her  teeth.  Then  the 
wind  died  down,  the  waves  became  less  angry,  and  in  a 
terrific  downpour  of  vertical  rain  they  landed  the  boat  in 
the  cove  of  Uncle  Jim's  island. 

Felix  gathered  wet  wood  outside  while  Joyce  started  a 
fire  with  what  was  left  over  from  their  last  trip.  Laughing, 
they  hovered  over  the  hot  stove  on  which  their  wrung-out 
garments  were  draped;  and  then,  reclad  and  warm,  they 
prepared  supper.  "  Did  you  realize,"  she  asked,  "  that  we 
were  within  an  inch  —  or  perhaps  an  inch  and  a  half — " 

"Of  Death?"  he  said.  "I  suspected  it,  but  I  wasn't 
sure." 

"Well,  there's  an  experience  for  your  literary  notebook. 
How  one  feels  in  the  moment  of,  and  so  forth.  How  did 
you  feel,  Felix?" 

*'  I  glimpsed  the  white  edge  of  your  face  —  by  that  flash 
of  lightning.  It  was  beautiful,  with  the  wet  hair  all  about 
it.  That's  all  I  thought.  What  did  you  think  about?" 

"  I  thought,"  she  said,  "  that  it  would  serve  me  right  if 
it  happened.  And  also  that  I  didn't  care.  Don't  ask  me 
why." 

"Why?" 

"  I  told  you  not  to. —  What  did  we  have  for  supper  the 
very  first  time  we  were  here?  Just  soup,  pork-and-beans, 
and  coffee  ?  I  want  to  have  the  same  things  this  time.  .  .  ." 

Felix  got  up  and  shook  the  lamp.  "  It's  going  out,"  he 
said,  "  and  we've  never  remembered  to  bring  any  oil.  Are 
there  any  candles  ?  " 

"  Look  and  see.  I  don't  think  so.  But  there's  an  old 
kerosene  wall-torch  somewhere  about.  It  may  have  a  little 
oil  in  it." 

Felix  rummaged.  He  found  no  candles,  but  at  last 
dragged  forth  the  battered  "  torch."  It  had  oil  in  it.  He 
hung  it  on  the  wall,  ready  for  lighting  when  the  dim  lamp 
should  expire. 


A  Garden  by  the  Water  Blows    383 

"  Here,"  said  Joyce,  "  is  supper.  I'm  hungry,  aren't 
you?" 

And  after  supper,  when  they  had  lighted  cigarettes,  she 
suddenly  jumped  up  and  went  to  her  coat,  hanging  behind 
the  stove,  and  saying,  "  Look  what  I've  brought ! "  drew 
forth  a  wet  leather-covered  copy  of  the  Rubaiyat.  It  was 
a  gift  to  her  from  Felix,  and  of  her  own  choosing. 

'*  I  want  you  to  read  to  me,"  she  said. 

He  smiled.  "  Everybody  reads  the  Rubaiyat  to  his  sweet 
heart,"  he  said,  but  took  the  volume. 

"  Well,  for  once,"  she  said  wistfully,  "  for  once  I'd  like 
you  to  do  what  everybody  does.  For  once  I'd  like  to  feel 
like  a  regular  sweetheart  with  you.  I  won't  ask  you  again, 
Felix,  ever." 


She  sank  down  at  his  feet,  and  rested  her  head  against 
his  knee,  while  he  read.  ...  It  was  almost  too  happy  a 
moment. 

Felix  had  expected  this  sweetness  of  perfect  under 
standing  and  careless  happiness  as  of  old  to  come  only 
after  explanations,  talk,  and  perhaps  their  fiercest  quarrel. 
It  did  not  seem  as  though  it  could  be  had  at  a  lesser 
price.  There  were  too  many  secret  grudges  against  each 
other  to  be  healed  in  an  instant,  without  a  word.  This 
peace  was  strange,  too  perfect  for  such  troubled  living 
creatures  as  themselves.  It  was  almost  as  though  they  had 
met  in  some  paradise,  after  death,  with  all  their  mortal 
doubts  and  fears  and  prides  burned  away  from  their  hearts. 
He  looked  down  at  her  quiet  face,  turning  the  pages  and 
saying  the  verses  from  memory. 

Her  cigarette  dropped  from  her  hand,  and  burned  itself 
to  a  film  of  grey  ash  on  the  floor.  He  read  on.  The  light 
fluttered,  dwindled  to  a  troubled  spark,  and  expired.  But 
Felix  knew  the  poem  too  well  to  need  the  text,  and  he  went 
on  speaking  its  soft  music.  At  last  he  reached  the  final 
stanza. 


384  Moon-Calf 

"And  when  like  her,  O  Saki,  you  shall  pass"  .  .  . 

He  had  fallen  under  the  spell  of  its  melancholy  sweetness, 
and  his  voice  had  sunk  to  a  deep-toned  whisper;  the  poem, 
and  the  girl  at  his  feet,  and  the  darkness  through  which 
came  the  muffled  sounds  of  the  wind  and  rain,  drugged  him 
with  their  beauty.  And  he  stopped  with  a  sudden  indig 
nation,  for  the  girl  was  laughing,  shaking  his  knee  with 
suppressed  laughter. 

"  Joyce !  "  he  said  reproachfully. 

She  jumped  to  her  feet. 

"  Light  the  lamp,"  she  said  —  and  he  knew  that  she  had 
been  crying. 

"  It's  gone  out,"  he  said  stupidly. 

44  Light  the  torch  then,"  she  directed. 

He  rose  and  struck  a  match.  She  was  wiping  her  eyes 
with  her  handkerchief.  He  went  over  to  her  tenderly,  but 
she  pushed  him  away.  "  Make  a  light,"  she  said.  "  I've 
got  something  to  tell  you." 

There  was  a  menace  in  her  tone  that  shook  his  hand  as 
he  lighted  the  torch  hanging  against  the  wall.  Its  flame 
wavered  up  and  down,  and  the  light  and  shadow  flickered 
and  throbbed  through  the  room.  He  turned  and  faced  her, 
and  still  he  did  not  know  what  she  was  going  to  tell  him.  He 
only  knew  that  the  changing  light  gave  her  face  a  queer, 
tragic  look. 

"  Listen  Felix.  I'm  going  to  marry  J.  H.  I  promised 
to  last  night." 

And  then  it  was  as  if  he  had  known  it  always. 

Of  course! 

And  while  the  world  of  his  dreams  fell  shattering  about 
him  with  a  noise  that  roared  audibly  in  his  ears,  he  took 
out  a  cigarette  and  lighted  it  with  a  steady  hand. 

"Yes?"  he  said. 


LI  Past  and  Present 


44  X^^VH,  I  hate  you!"  she  cried. 

•        1     He  made  a  step  toward  her,  and  she  drew  back 

^^^J  and  crossed  her  arms  as  if  defensively  upon 
her  breast.  "  I  hate  you,"  she  said  again,  and  then  put  her 
face  in  her  hands,  and  began  to  cry.  **  I'm  sorry  I  came 
here  with  you !  " 

Felix  put  his  arm  around  her.  "  Don't  hate  me,"  he  said. 
"Just  talk  to  me.  Tell  me  about  it,  Joyce."  He  led  her 
to  a  chair. 

"You  never  loved  me  at  all,"  she  said.  "Not  one 
least  little  bit." 

"  I  do  love  you,"  he  said.     "I  love  you  still." 

"You  don't!" 

"  We  won't  quarrel  about  that,"  he  said,  and  took  a  seat 
just  around  the  corner  of  the  little  table,  half  facing  her. 
"  Tell  me  —  is  it  because  you  thought  I  didn't  love  you  that 
you  —  promised  to  marry  J.  H.  ?  —  Because  it  isn't  true." 

She  shook  her  head,  and  breathed  heavily  for  a  moment, 
while  she  recovered  her  composure.  "  No,"  she  said 
steadily,  "  It  wasn't  that.  Not  that  at  all.  I've  been  a  fool. 
I'm  sorry.  But  it  wasn't  what  you  think." 

"  Then  you  did  —  know  I  cared?  " 

"Yes.  I  thought  you  did.  That  was  why  I  came  — 
—  tonight." 

"  And  was  this  your  idea  of  being  — nice  to  me?" 

"  No,"  she  said,  in  a  far  away  tone.  '  This  was  my  idea 
of  being  nice  to  myself.  I  wanted  one  last  evening  with  you. 
And  I  wanted  to  explain." 

41  Then  suppose  you  do  explain." 

385 


386  Moon-Calf 

"  I'll  —  try.     But  you  won't  understand." 

"  Do  you  love  J.  H.?" 

"  Yes." 

*'  And  you  don't  love  me  any  more.  Well,  that  seems 
explanation  enough."  He  lighted  another  cigarette.  The 
other  one  had  been  crushed  and  dropped  to  the  floor. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  that's  simple  enough.  If  it  satisfies 
you." 

"  So  it's  true  that  you  don't  love  me  any  more  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  not.     At  any  rate,  I  ought  not  to." 

"Why?" 

She  opened  her  eyes  wider.  "  Because  I've  promised  to 
marry  J.  H." 

"  But  you  shouldn't  have  promised  that  if  —  if  you  still 
love  me." 

"  I  didn't  say  I  still  loved  you.  .  .  ." 

"  No  —  you  said  just  now  that  you  hated  me.  I  wonder 
why?" 

"  Don't  remind  me  of  that,  Felix." 

"Well?" 

**  Give  me  a  cigarette." 

He  lighted  it  for  her. 

"  Can  you  forgive  me  ? "  she  asked.  "  I  mean  for 
bringing  you  out  here  and  —  and  pretending  that  everything 
was  all  right." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "if  you'll  tell  me  why  —  why  everything 
isn't  all  right.  Why  you  don't  love  me  any  longer." 

"  In  a  way,"  she  said,  "  I  do  love  you.  It's  funny.  It's 
just  like  what  you've  told  me.  A  year  ago  I  would  have 
been  shocked  at  myself,  to  think  of  being  in  love  with  two 
men  at  once.  But  it's  true  enough."  She  blew  out  a  cloud 
of  cigarette  smoke.  "  That's  what's  been  the  trouble  with 
me,  Felix.  I've  been  in  love  with  you  both ;  and  I've  had  to 
choose  between  you." 

"  I  see.     And  you  chose  —  J.  H." 

"  Yes." 
Because  you  loved  him  —  more." 


Past  and  Present 

"  I  love  him  in  a  different  way,  Felix.  I  don't  know 
you'll  understand.  .  .  .  It's  been  lovely  with  you.  But 
somehow  I  haven't  been  able  to  think  of  you  except  —  well, 
on  walks,  or  reading  a  book  to  me,  or  talking,  or  here  in  this 
Cabin.  Sort  of  a  playmate.  J.  H.  is  different.  He  appeals 
to  something  else  in  me.  .  .  .  Felix:  I  didn't  want  to  just 
play  always.  There's  a  different  side  to  me,  that  wants  to 
get  married  and  have  a  home  —  and  children." 

"  And  you  chose  J.  H.  for  that." 

She  raised  her  eyebrows.  "  You  aren't  exactly  cut  out 
to  be  a  husband,  are  you,  Felix  ?  You  wouldn't  want  to  be 
tied  down  to  a  home  and  children." 

"  You  think  I  —  didn't  want  to  get  married? " 

"  I  knew  you  didn't  believe  in  marriage.  I  suppose  you 
would  have  married  me  if  I  had  wanted  you  to.  But  that 
wasn't  the  kind  of  love  ours  was.  It  was  an  outdoor, 
holiday  sort  of  love.  It  was  an  adventure  —  for  both  of  us." 

"  I  suppose  it  —  was,"  said  Felix. 

"  A  beautiful  adventure,"  she  said  softly. 

"And  what  will  J.  H.  think  of  your  little  adventure?" 
he  asked  grimly. 

"  He'll  never  know,"  she  said  quietly. 

"You'll  — lie  to  him." 

"  We've  had  that  out,  Felix.  Yes,  I'll  lie  to  him,  if  you 
want  to  call  it  that.  He  will  never  know.  And  I  will  for 
get.  ...  He  wants  me  to  be  a  certain  sort  of  person.  And 
I  will  be  that  sort  of  person,  for  him." 

"You  will  be —  the  Perfect  Wife?"  asked  Felix 
satirically. 

"  Don't  make  fun  of  me.  I  shall  be  what  he  wants  me 
to  be." 

"  And  you  think  you  will  be  happy  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"You've  made  up  your  mind?" 

"Yes.  ...  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  before  —  before  I 
promised  him.  But  you  didn't  come.  ...  I  felt  —  treacher 
ous  to  you.  But  you  knew  he  was  coming  —  and  what  he 


388 


Moon-Calf 


wanted  —  and  I  tried  to  tell  you  a  little  in  those  notes.     I 
thought  maybe  you'd  guess." 

'  No,  I  didn't  guess,"  said  Felix. 

"  I  was  very  unhappy  about  it.     I  cried  and  cried.  .  .  ." 
"  You  used  to  think  you  hated  J.  H.  .  .  ." 
"  Yes  —  I  know  I  did.     That  was  when  Aunt  Hattie  was 
throwing  him  at  my  head.     I  didn't  want  to  be  rushed  into 
marriage.     I  wanted — " 

"  You  wanted  to  have  your  fling  first,"  said  Felix  bitterly. 
She  gazed  at  him  sadly. 

"  You  don't  really  think  that,"  she  said.  "  You  know  I 
loved  you." 

"  Why  did  you  stop  ? "  he  asked.  "  Can  you  tell  me 
that?" 

'*  I   don't   know  —  quite.     I  had   my  fling,   as  you   call 
it;  and  then  I  discovered  I  wanted  something  else." 
"Marriage  — or  J.  H.?" 

"  Oh,  I  couldn't  think  of  inflicting  myself  as  a  wife  on 
you,  Felix!  I  was  thinking,  one  of  those  times  when  we 
had  to  stay  in  the  house,  how  dreadful  it  would  be  if  we  were 
married.  .  .  .  Our  love  belonged  outside,  not  in  a  regular 
home.  It  wouldn't  have  done.  ...  I  thought  about  it," 
she  confessed.  "  But  it  seemed  —  foolish.  I  could  have  a 
certain  kind  of  happiness  with  you,  and  another  kind  with 
J.  H.  That  was  all.  Do  you  understand  ?  " 

"  And  you  really  think  you  can  —  be  what  he  wants  you 
to  be?"  * 

"  I'm  sure  of  it,"  she  said.     "  Don't  think  I  don't  love 
him,  Felix.     I  do.     And  I'm  going  to  be  —  a  good  wife  1 " 
'*  And  yet  —  you  say  you  still  love  me  ?  " 
"  Sort  of.     But  not  as  I  did.     That's  over." 
"Is  it  over?" 

"  Yes  —  over  for  ever  now." 

He  leaned  forward  and  took  her  hands.  She  withdrew 
them  from  him,  and  then  yielded  them  back.  There  was  a 
silence,  in  which  an  ancient  magic  seemed  to  renew  itself. 
They  clung  to  each  other's  hands  in  silence  a  long  while, 


Past  and  Present  389 

and  her  eyes,  at  last  meeting  his,  let  him  softly  into  their 
depths.     He  rose  and  put  his  arms  about  her. 

"  No,  Felix,"  she  said.  "  Please  don't.  You  know  you 
can  —  but  —  don't !  Please !  " 

He  went  back  to  his  chair. 

"  Dear,"  she  said,  "  I'm  sorry!  " 

He  suddenly  put  his  head  on  the  table  and  began  to  cry, 
dry-eyed. 

She  came  and  put  her  arms  about  him.  "  Felix,  dear, 
I'm  so  sorry.  I  —  I  didn't  know  you  cared  —  like  that." 

He  looked  up,  his  face  grotesquely  twisted  with  sobs. 
"  You  didn't  know  I  cared?  " 

"  No,"  she  whispered.  "  Not  that  way.  Did  you  really 
love  me  so  much  ?  " 

He  looked  at  her  tragically.  "  What  happened  ? "  he 
asked.  "  What  really  came  between  us  ?  I  can't  quite  be 
lieve  it." 

She  smoothed  his  hair.  "  I  don't  know,"  she  said  slowly. 
"  It  does  seem  strange,  doesn't  it  ?  We  loved  each  other  so 
much.  And  then  — " 

"What  began  it?  "he  asked. 

"  Then  we  stopped  talking  to  each  other.  You  wouldn't 
talk.  .  .  .  You  were  so  terribly  sensitive." 

"  Was  I  ?  " 

"  You  wouldn't  let  me  come  near  you.  ...  I  was  so  sorry 
for  you,  Felix  —  I  felt  just  like  a  mother.  But  you  were 
too  proud  to  let  me  comfort  you.  You  tried  to  pretend  that 
you  weren't  worried  > — I  mean  about  that  old  job.  It 
meant  a  lot  to  you,  I  know.  I  wanted  to  pet  you  and  cheer 
you  up  and  tell  you  that  everything  would  come  out  all 
right.  But  you  held  me  away.  .  .  ." 

UI  did?" 

"  Yes.  .  .  .  And  then  I  didn't  understand  —  as  I  do  now. 
I  felt  that  you  were  shutting  me  out  of  your  life.  And  — 
I'm  proud,  too,  you  know." 

"  Pride,"  said  Felix,  holding  her  other  hand  close  to  his 
breast. 


390  Moon-Calf 

"  We  both  acted  very  foolishly,"  she  said.  "  But  being  shut 
out  of  your  thoughts  wasn't  at  all  my  notion  of  being  — 
lovers." 

"I  thought,"  said  Felix  painfully,  "  that  you  —  that 
maybe  you  didn't  believe  in  me  any  more." 

"  Believe  in  you !  How  ridiculous !  Of  course  I  be 
lieved  in  you,  Felix.  Do  you  suppose  I  blamed  you  for 
losing  that  silly  job?  You  mean  that  I  thought  —  Oh, 
Felix ! " 

"  I  had  lost  my  —  my  place  in  the  world,"  he  said. 
"  And  I  thought  perhaps  you  just  considered  me  a  dreamer 
—  a  man  who  would  never  succeed." 

"  I  knew  you  could  succeed  —  if  you  wanted  to.  Some 
times  I  wasn't  sure  you  wanted  to.  I'm  glad  you  do  want 
to,  Felix  —  for  your  own  sake.  You  can  do  whatever  you 
want  to  —  I  believe  that  absolutely.  What  you  want  to  do 
may  not  be  what  other  people  think  is  the  best,  but — " 

"  You  make  me  out  to  be  a  much  more  determined  person 
than  I  am,"  he  protested.  "I  really  feel  —  awfully  help 
less.  I  don't  know  what  I  would  have  done  if  the  Record  — " 

*'  Oh,  nonsense,  there  are  other  newspapers  in  the  world. 
I  know  what  you  would  have  done.  You  would  have  gone 
to  Chicago  —  on  a  freight  train,  if  necessary." 

"I  wonder?" 

"  I'm  sure  of  it.  I've  heard  you  talk  about  Chicago,  and 
I  knew  then  that  you  would  go.  You  are  a  writer,  and  you 
belong  where  there  is  your  kind  of  work  to  do.  I  doubt  if 
you'll  stay  much  longer  in  Port  Royal,  anyway.  It's  no 
place  for  a  person  like  you." 

*'  I  suppose,"  he  mused,  "  when  I  lose  my  job  on  the  Rec 
ord  I'll  have  to  go  somewhere  else.  .  .  ." 

*'  I  have  to  laugh  at  you,  Felix,  really.  Your  airs  of  help 
lessness  !  I  don't  believe  you  understand  yourself  at  all. 
Sometimes  I  haven't  understood  you  myself.  But  I  do 
now.  I've  thought  a  lot  about  you  lately.  You  —  in  the 
first  place,  you're  absolutely  ruthless," 
"  I  ?  " 


Past  and  Present  391 

*'  Don't  pretend  to  be  shocked.  Of  course  you  are.  You 
know  what  you  want,  and  take  it." 

"  For  example?" 

"  For  example,  me.  You  are  a  writer,  you  want  experi 
ence.  Here  am  I  —  and  you  take  me !  —  You  want  to  learn 
how  to  write  novels.  There's  Tom  —  and  you  take  him. — 
And  when  you're  through  with  us,  you  move  on.  You  need 
Chicago  —  and  you'll  take  that.  Oh,  I  know  from  the 
things  you've  said  lately  —  it's  neither  me  nor  Tom,  now; 
it's  Chicago." 

"  Funny  girl !  "  he  said.  And  then  after  a  pause,  "  Do 
you  know  why  I  was  trying  so  hard  to  get  a  job  in  a  soap- 
factory  or  a  harness-shop  or  a  stove-works  here  in  Port 
Royal  ?  " 

"  No  —  unless  it  was  to  avoid  the  opportunity  of  spend 
ing  your  time  playing  with  me !  No  —  I  never  could  guess, 
and  of  course  you  were  too  proud  to  tell  me.  What  was 
the  reason  ?  " 

He  laughed.     "  You  will  never  know,"  he  said. 

She  laughed,  too.     "  Do  you  still  like  me,  Felix  ?  " 

"  I  love  you,"  he  said. 

*'  I'm  glad.  Because  I  love  you,  too.  And  you  won't  be 
mad  at  me  for —  for  marrying  J.  H.?" 

"  I  can't  be  mad  at  you  for  anything,"  he  said. 

"  Then  you  can  kiss  me  —  nicely !  "  And  she  bent  her 
face  to  his-. 

"  And  maybe  you  can  come  and  see  me  some  time.  If 
you'll  be  friends  with  J.  H.  I  really  think  you  two  would 
like  each  other." 

"  Some  time,"  he  said.     *'  Not  now." 

"  You  can  kiss  me  again,"  she  whispered. 

They  kissed,  and  it  seemed  to  Felix,  as  he  felt  her  love 
unquenchably  flooding  her  trembling  body,  that  he  was  look 
ing  into  the  Abyss. 

Even  now  it  was  not  too  late. 

Should  he  try? 

No  —  she  was  right.  .  .  . 


392  Moon-Calf 

"We  must  go,"   she  whispered.     "  We   shouldn't   have 
done  that.     Come,  we  must  hurry." 


It  was  dark  on  the  way  home,  and  Felix  sat  a  little  apart 
from  Joyce,  and  he  had  the  curious  illusion  that  instead  of 
a  steering  wheel,  she  was  bent  softly  over  a  child  —  the 
child  that  should  have  been  hers  and  his. 

"  Qood-bye." 

"/Good-bye." 
\T 


LII  Ending 


IN  the  woods  back  of  Tom's  place  in  the  country  was  a 
creek.     Felix  wanted  to  go  there   and   sit  beside  its 
coolness,  and  let  it  wash  this  burning  ache  from  his 
mind.     Flowing  water  had  its  own  magic.     He  must  go 
there  now,  quickly. 

He  stopped  at  the  railway  station,  and  found  that  there 
was  no  train  at  this  hour  which  stopped  at  the  village. 
Then  he  would  walk.  He  turned  to  go,  and  his  eye  was 
caught  by  a  map  on  the  wall,  a  map  in  which  a  dozen  iron 
roads  were  shown  crossing  the  Middle  West  and  centering 
in  a  dark  blotch  up  in  the  corner.  .  .  .  He  went  out. 

He  would  take  the  river  road,  which  he  had  tramped  with 
Tom. 

The  pain  of  useless  thought,  the  intolerable  pain  of  mem 
ory.  ...  If  once  he  could  get  to  that  creek,  and  sit  beside  it 
until  morning.  It  would  take  away  his  pain,  it  would  wash 
clean  his  mind,  it  would  dissolve  the  debris  of  the  past  in 
its  cool  stream  and  carry  it  away  for  ever.  .  .  . 

It  did  not  seem  possible  that  there  would  be  a  time,  soon, 
very  soon,  when  his  mind  would  not  hurt  like  this.  But  it 
was  true,  he  knew  it  was  true;  he  would  stop  caring,  stop 
feeling.  .  .  .  The  stream  would  free  him  of  his  pain. 

The  road  emerged  from  hiding  bluffs,  and  he  saw  beside 
him  the  river,  dark  in  the  darkness.  The  stream  would 
carry  his  thoughts  to  the  river,  and  the  river  would  carry 
them  to  the  sea,  and  they  would  be  lost  for  ever.  .  .  . 

The  miles  went  past.  Soon  he  would  be  there,  beside  the 
creek,  in  the  darkness,  listening  to  its  soft  music.  Water 
knows  something  which  we  do  not  know.  It  knows  how  to 
forget  —  and  it  teaches  us. 

393 


394  Moon-Calf 

2 

A  little  farther,  beside  the  grey  river  —  the  great  grey 
stream  that  slides  toward  the  sea.  That  slides  toward  the 
sea.  Port  Royal.  Beside  the  great  grey  stream  that  slides 
toward  the  sea.  Not  a  bad  line !  He  would  use  that  in  his 
Port  Royal  poem,  the  one  he  was  going  to  write  for  the 
Record.  .  .  .  He  had  been  happy  in  Port  Royal :  it  had 
given  him  love,  and  painful  wisdom,  and  the  joy  of  struggle. 
He  would  like  to  write  a  poem  about  it.  The  town  had  been 
built  for  him,  though  they  who  built  it  had  not  known.  It 
had  been  built  for  young  men  and  girls  to  be  happy  in,  to 
adventure  in,  and  to  think  strange  and  free  and  perilous 
thoughts.  It  was  not  like  other  towns.  .  .  .  No,  it  had  a 
history  of  its  own  —  from  the  first  it  had  been  a  rebellious 
place.  It  had  been  founded  so,  by  men  who  were  different 
from  others  —  or  it  was  pleasant  to  think  so.  And  lion- 
hearted  men  saw  in  each  other's  eyes  dimly  the  first  faint 
gleam  of  that  same  high  surmise.  .  .  . 

Yes,  it  was  an  amusing  thought,  that  Port  Royal  had 
been  built  for  such  purposes  —  for  growing  up  in.  Port 
Royal  was  not  everything,  of  course.  It  had  sufficed  nobly. 
It  had  given  him  much.  And  now  — 

He  saw  again  in  his  mind's  eye,  as  he  tramped  the  road, 
a  picture  of  the  map  on  the  wall  of  the  railway  station  — 
the  map  with  a  picture  of  iron  roads  from  all  over  the 
Middle  West  centering  in  a  dark  blotch  in  the  corner.  .  .  . 

"  Chicago !  "  he  said  to  himself. 

And  then  the  hurt  came  again  —  the  hurt  of  lost  beauty, 
of  unforgotten,  unforgettable  love.  Felix  quickened  his 
steps.  Another  mile.  And  water.  And  forgetting. 

But  his  tramping  steps  went  to  the  rhythm  of  a  word  that 
said  itself  over  and  over  in  his  mind: 

"Chicago!     Chicago!" 


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